I'm considering myself a lucky SOB

[yuccahead]

So, yesterday I went up to Arches NP for one of my nature walks, as I have come to call them. I like to look on Google Earth for nice long dry washes in the park and just walk them til they come to an impassable dryfall or just peter out. These are places the tourists never go, so I'm usually guaranteed some solitude and quiet.
Anyway, I followed this wash from the park road for more than a mile until I came to some sandstone sections that had been sculpted by the floods and had a number of deep potholes. There was one that was about 10 ft. in diameter and appeared to have some small bones in it.



It's about 6' high on the right and about 3' on the left.
I got into the pothole and was busily examining the skull and bones and taking some photos like this-



After a few minutes I decided to look around the rest of the pothole and saw this-



Holy Mother of Goldseeker! I'm in a pit with a Midget Faded rattlesnake! Crotalus concolor for you snake wranglers.
Yeowwza, I'm up and out as fast as possible.
I circled around to get up above this little brother and zoomed in as best I could.



I estimated that stone beside it to be about 2" long. I'm guessing this was a pretty young snake, due to the deep contrast in it's coloring, and I'm not even sure if it was alive or if it would be able to get out of there. It never moved or made a sound. It's the first rattler I've seen in four years of hiking around here.
I'm considering myself to be a lucky SOB.

BTW, if anybody can ID that skull, I'd be obliged.

[mlv]

Great photos and neat place you found !!!

Watching out for snakes is a full time job when walking in the desert!

My girl and I took a nice hike down a wash SE of Boulder City, NV last Sunday to a natural arch feature...........but we didn't take any cameras along...........we will get phot's on the next trip !!

[Goldseeker]

So, yesterday I went up to Arches NP for one of my nature walks, as I have come to call them. I like to look on Google Earth for nice long dry washes in the park and just walk them til they come to an impassable dryfall or just peter out. These are places the tourists never go, so I'm usually guaranteed some solitude and quiet.
Anyway, I followed this wash from the park road for more than a mile until I came to some sandstone sections that had been sculpted by the floods and had a number of deep potholes. There was one that was about 10 ft. in diameter and appeared to have some small bones in it.



It's about 6' high on the right and about 3' on the left.
I got into the pothole and was busily examining the skull and bones and taking some photos like this-



After a few minutes I decided to look around the rest of the pothole and saw this-



Holy Mother of Goldseeker! I'm in a pit with a Midget Faded rattlesnake! Crotalus concolor for you snake wranglers.
Yeowwza, I'm up and out as fast as possible.
I circled around to get up above this little brother and zoomed in as best I could.



I estimated that stone beside it to be about 2" long. I'm guessing this was a pretty young snake, due to the deep contrast in it's coloring, and I'm not even sure if it was alive or if it would be able to get out of there. It never moved or made a sound. It's the first rattler I've seen in four years of hiking around here.
I'm considering myself to be a lucky SOB.

BTW, if anybody can ID that skull, I'd be obliged.

Well, I dont know about the lucky part, but other than that, you're correct.

[reptilist]

Very pretty snake!
Probably doomed unless you can get it out of there.

[HSSC]

Looks like he/she was waiting for the sunshine to warm his/her sole. Good looking for sure.

[TradClimber]

I'm glad this cute little snake didn't have to waste any of it's precious venom on you. Now, you owe it a favor and it needs your help. From what I see in your photo - I agree with what Rep. wrote:

Probably doomed unless you can get it out of there.

Please consider going back and extracating this poor creature. If extracating is too far out of your confort zone - maybe place a limb (preferably not yours) in the solution pocket that it could climb out on. Consider posting the lat/lon location on this and other sites so others might help.

yuccahead - You can make a difference in this young snake's life!

TradClimber

[yuccahead]

TradClimber, while I sympathize with the notion of assisting this snake, the overriding principle at work here is the ideology of the National Park itself. That is, places in America where nature is allowed to run it's own course. The skull and bones I went in there to examine probably belonged to an animal that also found itself trapped and it's body provided another creature with some nourishment. The same will no doubt happen with this snake, maybe an owl, hawk or coyote will discover it and have a meal or feed their young.
I do plan to go back in a week or so, to look for tracks and see if I can understand what may have happened. In the meantime, nature needs no assistance from me.
Also, I don't carry a GPS, nor would I post coordinates of any place I go on the internet. That would be self defeating in a search for solitude, don't you think?

[Jerry Feldner]

Yuccahead, check this website and look for bone ID>>> http://www.desertmuseum.org/


I guess I don't have to throw in my 2 cents but I will anyway. You should do all you can to allow that little snake a chance at life. BTW, this is just the kind of place I like to rake through in hopes of finding other critters.

[Gerald D. Sain]

SAINhere

Yuccahead;
I agree with you 99%. Let the snake be, or kill it. He is right at home and is proberly eating better then his sisters or brothers.
If I were there, I would kill the snake. I'm thinking that if I save the snake, the snake turns and somehow bites me, I'm dead.
A baby snake is more poisonous than a full grown snake but both will kill you.
Any poisonous snake dies in my book, besides, if you kill the snake, you could be saving a life and maybe your own.

Gerald

[Cobrakeeper]

I wish I knew where this notion of juvenile/neonate venomous snakes being more venomous than the adults came from. This is ludacrous. The neonate and adult snakes possess the same venom, there is no differance. I guess where the confusion might come from is that people say a neonate snake doesn't know how much venom to inject during a bite and will thus inject more than an adult. Lets say for instance that this is true. Even if a neonate rattlesnake for example were to dump its full load of venom from its glands, that still wouldn't even be close to what an adult could deliver even on a controled bite simply due to the fact that the venom glands of a neonate are significantly smaller than that of an adult snake. A full injection from a neonate might only be a couple drops where as even a partial bite from an adult is considerabley more than that. Anyways, just my two cents.

Aaron