Away from people.
-Okay, mostly away, National Parks always have people somewhere.
We were heading out, back to the car, before a threatening storm hit us.
As hiking on wet sandstone...not fun.
But, we took a slight detour.
As two years ago, when my Dad and I made the same hike, we discovered this cool little crevice.
And since we had the rest of the family with us, we figured we show them that cool spot. :D
So over we hiked, and in the narrow canyon way we went. ^^
It's not a long canyon, but it pieters out in a Y shape. With two different ways we could take.
A narrow way, and a narrower way.
I had been of the mind to try out the narrower way, and to send my family up the narrow way.
But then, my dad was like "Wait, I want to take a picture of all of you down there, wait a second."
So there we sat, waiting for my dad to come up and around to take a picture of us at the Y, crossroads.
A picture of the crevice.
We were standing at the point.
The route on the left side of the picture is the narrower way.
The route on the right side of the picture is the narrow way.
Dad, was taking forever.
So for fun, I grabbed onto the nobby part (the pointed triangle you see) and pulled myself up, basically to show that I could, before dropping back down.
I'd thought that he was going to come up along the right side of the crevice (right side in the picture)
But instead, he decided to come up on the left.
And it's a good thing he did.
Because as he jumped over the narrower way,
He said oh so matter of factly.
"Hey, There's a rattlesnake."
For a moment I thought he was kidding.
A rattlesnake? In Arches National Park?
Ha!
Never seen one there.
He wasn't kidding.
No, camped out right by the exit to the narrow way out of the crevice, was a rattlesnake.
We literally could have been struck in the head, or on the hand if we placed them in the wrong spot in the wrong moment.
But.
We didn't.
As my Dad had made the decision to get a picture of us in the crevice.
As he had decided to come up on the left side of the picture instead of the right.
And saw.
This is a picture of him, after Dad urged him gently to move away from our exit with his walking stick.
It's actually rather amazing that Dad noticed him at all.
As, this rattlesnake, is reddishpink just like the Red Rocks it lives in.
I mean, I had lifted myself up to get a view outside of the crevice just minutes before and hadn't noticed him.
Of course...I hadn't been looking for snakes. Just at the view in the distance.
But seriously. Scary. I mean, we could have been hurt. :S
Luckily we weren't. ^^
And with a quick jaunt over to the visitor center,
we found out that this rattlesnake is a midget faded rattlesnake.
They only get to be about 3feet long at the max, and as they get older, their pattern fades. The rangers at the center also told us that the midget faded rattlesnake is a bit more docile then some of its cousins. More likely to run away instead of strike at people.
Still doesn't mean it wouldn't have attacked us had we appeared right in front of it suddenly. :S
But, thankfully, that didn't happen. :D
We got to see something we hadn't seen before in Arches, without any harm coming to us or the snake. :)
Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!
-Sarnic Dirchi
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