vituperation

June 11, 2004

This, I thought, stopping short, is exactly why I don’t like hiking in the summer.

I stood on a switchback near the top of Montesano Mountain yesterday morning, on the yellow-blazed trail that leads from the south plateau down into and across McKay Hollow before making a steep 600-foot climb back to the rim in the last half-mile.

The corporate picnic of my company’s largest customer was yesterday, held at Montesano State Park this year. Everyone else was busy eating lunch (who the hell eats at eleven?) so I took advantage of that time to go for a nice 4-ish mile hike around the mountain. Why eat fried chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, and cakes when there are trails to explore?

The trail along the south plateau is big, nearly wide enough to drive on, and kept clear because it’s one of the most popular trails on the mountain. The McKay Hollow trail, on the other hand, is rarely used because of its difficult nature. As a result, the trail is narrow — a foot or less in most places — and the encroaching undergrowth makes it occasionally hard to follow.

Stretched lengthwise along the rocky trail in front of me, head away from me, was a tan snake, about three or four feet long, with distinctive dark brown markings down his back. His flat triangular head and thick, stubby body told me one important thing: he was bad news. Immediately I checked his tail, and saw exactly what I expected.

Rattles.

Motherfucker, I thought, stopping short, my eyes glued to the path ahead. This is exactly why I don’t like hiking in the summer.

There’s not really anywhere to go when you’re on a switchback. If you don’t know what a switchback is (I didn’t until I started hiking), it’s a trail designed to make getting up or down a hillside easier. A zig-zag trail, so it’s not as steep as a straight-line trail would be. Think of a Donkey Kong (the original, from the 80’s) screen. That’s a switchback. Or, just look at this picture of a switchback road.

To my left was a drop. Not sheer or anything, but too steep to try to deal with, and very overgrown. To my right, a steep uphill, and then a rock face about ten feet away. I could turn around and go back the way I’d come, but I think we all know me better than that. There was really only one thing I could do, given that I’m a full-blooded American male.

I reached out poked the rattlesnake’s rattle with my walking stick.

My situation did not improve.

With a frenzied burst of rattling, the tail moved away from me and the head swung around toward me. He reared up, pulled his head back, and froze. Silence reigned in the forest as the timber rattler and I stared at one another, unmoving.

Slowly I reached into my pocket, doing my best to look unaggressive, and pulled out my cell phone. I dialed Robyn.

“Hey, Bessie,” I said when she answered. “What you doing?”

“Running errands. What you doing?”

“I’m standing here looking at a rattlesnake,” I explained. “I wanted you to be on the phone if I’m about to get bitten and die.”

“That’s good to know,” she replied.

“I poked it with a stick.”

“That was smart.”

“It rattled at me.”

“Well, then you need to go around it, don’t you think?”

“I can’t.” I explained the trail to her. “So I have to get it off the trail if I want to keep going. You’re going to be my moral support.”

“It’s too bad you didn’t take the camera,” she said.

“I know. The one damn time I need it, and I left it at home.”

The snake, motionless throughout our conversation, remained that way, gazing at me. Probably wondering how he’d be able to get his jaws around a head the size of mine.

I drew a breath.

“Here goes,” I said.

“Be careful.”

I reached out with my walking stick — and boy, that rubber tip I used to joke about sure came in handy for being gentle — and prodded at the rattler. His response was to draw back a little more, rattling furiously.

Let’s talk about that rattling for a moment. In the movies, the rattles are slow, kind of a tickticktickticktick. Like a rotating lawn sprinkler, or maybe a washing machine on the spin cycle. This rattler’s (and maybe timber rattlers are just different) rattling was nothing like that. It was more like the sound of cicadas in the corn, a cruel insectile buzz that makes you want to claw your eardrums out, anything to make it stop.

It’s the sound of insanity, I think.

“You hear that?” I said, excitedly. “He’s rattling at me!”

“I hear it,” she replied. “Why are you so close?”

“I’m not that close. He’s away too far to strike. Hang on, I’m gonna poke him again.”

When I did, even though I didn’t think it was possible, the rattling grew louder and more agitated. Begrudgingly, the snake began to slither off the path, taking his time to show me he wasn’t particularly frightened of me.

“He’s moving,” I said, and gently touched my walking stick to the snake again.

It meandered up the hill to my right, taking its sweet time, until it found a cleft in the rock face and slid into it and out of sight. The cleft served to amplify the sound of its rattling.

“That is too fucking cool,” I said. “Listen to that!”

Robyn wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was by the sound. Matter of fact, now that I think about it, she sounded practically bored with the fact that my life was on the line.

“Alright,” I said. “I survived. You can finish your errands.”

We hung up, and I finished out the trail. I didn’t have to prod any more rattlesnakes out of the way, but I sure was one jumpy motherfucker. You don’t really think SERIOUSLY about them being out there until you stumble up on one, and then it makes you realize how easy it would be to get bitten, especially on a narrow overgrown hillside trail.

Humorously, at one point a snapping briar popped me on the calf and I did a comical sort of goose-stepping run trying to get away from it. Fortunately there were no witnesses.

Except all the other rattlers out there watching me, I’m sure.