Rattlesnakes

The rattlesnake slipped into the creek and swam away with elastic curves. I watched it go with relief and apprehension. I was glad to see the big sucker turn tail, but I’d been in the desert for all of five minutes and I’d already spotted a rattler –how long before I came across another?

Some people are terrified of snakes. I’m not. That doesn’t mean I want to cuddle with them or tickle their fangs Steve Irwin-style. I just don’t mind observing them from

a safe distance, the way you slow down on the highway to get a better look at a car wreck. Oh, that looks bad. Real nasty. Glad I’m nowhere near that. I guess I have what you call a healthy fear of snakes. But that day in the Texas desert, my fear was quickly changing from healthy to toxic.

It got worse the next day when I drove the empty stretch from Pecos to the Guadalupe Mountains. The desert unfurled in hills of red rotten earth, and the hard shrub looked like five o’clock shadow. This is their home, I thought as I drove along. This is where rattlesnakes live. Odd thoughts started creeping up. How many rattlesnakes per square miles of desert? If I set out in a random direction one hundred times, how many steps would I have to take, on average, before getting bit by a rattlesnake? How many did I drive by per mile of road? How many had been born on this hill, or that cliff? I could have stumped the greatest rattlesnake statistician.

I pulled up to the visitor center and walked straight down the middle of the paved walkway. A ruddy ranger with goose-feather hair greeted me.

“How can I help you?”

“I’m going up Guadalupe Peak in the morning,” I said. “Do you guys have maps or anything?

“Of course, hang on just a minute!”

Rangers are always eager to give you a free map or two, even if it only shows the way to the john, so I wasn’t surprised when he vanished behind his desk. In the meantime, I wandered around the exhibits in the visitor center: accounts of the Guadalupe Mountains’ geology that a layman had no hope of understanding, 3-D maps of the entire range, and a gaggle of stuffed rodents baring their ugly little grins behind a plastic case. And nestled between the furry buggers was a stuffed rattlesnake. No, not one. Two. Actually…there were five. The Guadalupe Mountains boasted no less than five (five!) types of rattlesnake, each more eager than the last to take a chomp at my ankles. I was about to hike up the tallest mountain in Texas. Over eight miles of trail scrawled across the

dusty desert. What were my chances of not running into one of these? Of not getting bitten? Did anyone ever even make it out of here alive?

“Sir? I have some maps for you.”

The ranger was standing behind his desk with a pile of paper that would have made a notary blanch.

“Thanks,” I said.

I hesitated. A guy in a loose pink shirt had just come in and was standing behind me so he could speak to the ranger.

“So, uh, are there a lot of rattlesnakes out there?” I asked, and the guy behind me snickered.

“Oh yes, absolutely, yes,” the ranger said, as if delivering amazing news. “It’s that time of the year. You’ve got to watch out.”

“Great. So, how often do people get bit?”

“Oh, it happens. It certainly happens.”

He was downright jovial about it.

“But you guys keep, like, you know, anti-venom here, or whatever?”

More snickers.

“Oh no, not here. They have that at the hospital. That’s why you’re supposed to take a picture of the snake that bit you so they know what type to use.”

“Super. I’m just supposed to ask the snake that bit me to stay still so I can take a picture of it? Where’s the nearest hospital anyway?”

“Oh, well, it’s a ways, I suppose.”

I didn’t press the issue. A sign outside the park said “nearest gas: 111 miles.” It left no illusions on the proximity of a hospital.

“So, uh, what are my chances of being bitten, you think?” I asked in a lower voice so the pink shirt guy wouldn’t hear.

“Oh, who knows?” the ranger said as though I’d just asked him about the meaning of life. “All I can say is it’s certainly the season. They like to crawl out onto the path and spread out so they can sunbathe. I think they actually fall asleep. Last week I was driving down the service road and there was a huge snake lying across the path. I honked three times, right by it, and it didn’t move.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But you know, not every bite is fatal. Sometimes, a bite only results in the victim losing a limb. Or sometimes, a rattler will dry-bite you, just to scare you. It won’t actually pump venom into you. Except for the babies. A baby rattler’s bite is always venomous, because they can’t control their venom glands yet. That’s why they’re the most dangerous.”

“Listen man,” the pink shirt guy interjected. “Your chances of running into a baby rattler are, like, totally insignificant.”

I turned around and instantly disliked him. Maybe it was his squash-like forehead, his square glasses sitting way too high on his nose, or his ugly pink shirt, but something about him made me quite certain that this wasn’t the first or last time he had said “listen man” to a complete stranger.

“Well, actually, that’s not true,” the ranger said. “Just yesterday when I got out of my trailer, I almost stepped on one. They’re certainly not shy.”

It was bittersweet. Pink shirt guy had been put in his place, but unfortunately his place was one crawling with deadly baby snakes. In any case, I’d had it. I scooped up my maps and let these two rattlesnake scholars hammer it out.

I crawled out of my tent at 6:00 A.M. the next morning. The night was coffee-black, and too cold for rattlesnakes to be out yet. Good plan, dude, I thought as I packed up camp. Get up and down the mountain before the sun’s even out. There and back while the snakes are still snoozing. I shouldered my rucksack and started down the trail, my trekking poles clicking on loose rocks.

I hiked a few switchbacks carved into the mountainside, zigzagging between flowering cacti. The trail was steep and soon I could guess the rough shapes of the desert below me in the early morning light –the sun was rising. A blinding little disk strained into the blurry horizon, dusting everything with red light. Suddenly I could see everything. Every little piece of wood in the way, every root poking out onto the trail. Have you ever noticed how much an innocent stick lying on a trail looks like a snake? When you’re convinced that a pack of rattlers is about to bite your face off, they are indistinguishable.

I made my way up the mountain, my heart shuddering at every sinuous branch emerging from the dirt. I stopped every time I spotted a lizard scurrying between pebbles, sure that I was about to receive the ultra-venomous bite of a baby rattler. At one point, I cried out in terror when I walked on something scaly. Upon closer inspection, it was a fallen conifer branch. Scaly-looking to be sure, but not a snake.

I remembered what I had read on Wikipedia the night before. If a snake bites you, the best thing to do is get to a hospital ASAP. Even if you have to run and jump down the trail, time is the critical factor. The sooner you get treatment, the less damage the venom does to you. Another great piece of advice from the same article: keep your heart-rate low, your metabolism non-existent, and your body inert. Getting the system going only pumps the poison out to your vital organs quicker. So basically, get help as quickly as possible, but don’t hurry. A catch-22 if I ever heard one.

I kept walking, leaping back several feet every time I stepped on a branch or saw anything move. If backward-jumping was a sport, I was setting multiple Olympic records.

By eight o’clock, I had to stop for water. The sun was still low, but the dry desert heat was already in full effect –my back was doused in sweat. The rocky notches along the path shimmered and smoked like bacon hitting the pan.

“Good morning!”

I nearly jumped straight to the summit. I looked around, ready to fight off what could only be a devious new kind of talking snake.

“Up here.”

One switchback ahead of me, an old man in shorts and sneakers was perched on a small boulder. I heaved in relief and made my way up to him. He wore a polo shirt with a halo of sweat around the collar. His face was an olive mask of wrinkled leather beneath a dust-streaked ball-cap.

“Well, I saw you coming a while ago,” he said, sucking in his Ws. 

“I could tell you were quite a bit faster than me, so I figured I’d let you catch up.”

His voice had the cadence of boats swaying in a harbor.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’m Chuck,” he said, holding out his leathery hand. “Chuck Garrett.”

“Jean,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Jean. Like Jean-Claude without the Claude,” I recited.

“Ah, so you’re French?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now, tell me Jean, what is your name? Your family name?”

“It’s a complicated one,” I told him, laughing.

“Well, Jean-Claude without the Claude, welcome to the West,” he said, gesturing at the desert splayed out below us.

“Thank you,” I said, and actually meant it. “I’ve just gotten to the West.”

Chuck nodded as if he already knew.

“It’s beautiful country. If you’ve got the time and the means to see it, then it sure is beautiful country.”

"Yes, sir.”

“There’s so much to do and see here,” he said. “You could keep at it your whole life and only scratch the surface.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Well, this is a good place to start.”

“It is,” I agreed. “Have you been here before?”

“Once,” Chuck said. “But it was rainy and socked it. I couldn’t see a thing. I got to the summit just to say I’d been there, but I couldn’t see my own hands.”

I felt a little ashamed. Here was this old man trudging up the mountain for the second time in hopes of taking in the views, and I’d spent all morning staring at my feet and scanning every branch in the path.

“Well, you go right on ahead,” he said, motioning to the path as if holding a door for me. “And I will see you on the summit if you do linger there to enjoy the view.”

“I’m sure I will. Thank you sir.”

I moved away quickly –I was tired but I didn’t want to betray his perception of me as a fast hiker.

I took me two more hours to reach the small summit plateau. Two long, torturous hours of cringing at every root, recoiling from lizards, inspecting every grain of sand in the path before taking a single step, and all along wondering when I would feel

a sharp and sudden puncture in my ankle. In no hurry to plunge back into the snake-infested wilderness of the trail, I sat down carefully on a big square rock and enjoyed the 360 degree view. Chuck joined me about twenty minutes later.

“Well, well,” he said, still sucking in his Ws. “You’re still here, huh?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a beautiful spot.”

“It sure is, it sure is.”

He sat down next to me. I made a vague motion towards the desert.

“You’re getting your view this time, huh?

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, I could practically see the boats swaying in the breeze.

“You know, Jean, there are places in this world that I simply do not have the vocabulary to describe.”

I looked back down. The ground gave way twenty feet ahead of us and plummeted down a pine-covered hillside, and then back up a rocky saddle onto the backside of El Capitan, a large rock tower guarding the southern approach to Guadalupe Peak. Beyond, as far as I could see, cliffs and dunes converged into the supple curve of ridge-lines, crisscrossing, raveling and unraveling to a horizon fudged into a hazy white sky. Again, I felt ashamed.

I said goodbye to Chuck and started down the mountain. The midday sun was blazing and even moving downhill felt difficult. I thought about Chuck’s words and did my best to take my eyes off the path and admire the scenery. However, the closer I got to my car, the more I sped up my pace. I didn’t want to run into a rattler just as I was about to make it back to my car.

About a quarter-mile from the trailhead, I ran into two guys with huge backpacks on. They were both sweaty and, for some reason, giddy. When they saw me coming down, one of them called out.

“Howdy!”

“Hey,” I said back.

“You seen any snakes?”

My heartbeat accelerated.

“Um, no. You?”

“Check this picture out.”

He shoved his iPhone in my hands. And there it was. A gigantic rattler crossing the path. It looked more like a boa constrictor to me.

“Where was it?” I asked.

“Oh, just past the parking lot. Like two hundred feet in.”

I handed the phone back to him and they moved on up the trail. From where I was standing, I could see the parking lot. I could even see my car. It was just a quarter-mile away. Ten minutes, and I’d be there. So what if a rattlesnake had crossed the path? It was long gone by now. What were the odds of another one appearing on the same section of trail this soon? I was fine. Totally fine.

I took a few steps forward slowly, then walked a hundred feet. I stepped over a big rock, and something slithered across the dust from underneath, sending me jumping back yet again. It was a lizard.

I ran the rest of the way.

Breaking Down In Arkansas

I stuck my thumb up for the umpteenth time. The umpteenth car swooshed past me, giving a berth wide enough that I could have lied down on the road. It was four o'clock on a Friday, and I was not in the best mood.

I'd hitchhiked my way into the small town of Harrison, Arkansas to grab lunch after dropping my car off at the mechanic's. I was only expecting a minor repair on my brakes. And then I'd received the call. You know, the call from the mechanic -the one that makes you open your eyes real wide and say: “wait, how much?” The call where it turns out your main cylinder is toast, and it's Friday, and they can't get to your car today, and they don't have the parts on site anyway. The call that means you're not going anywhere for a while.

So here I was, thumb in the breeze, walking three miles to pick up my crippled car for the weekend. When I finally did get a ride, it was from a white-haired man who told me: “I don't usually pick up hitchhikers, but the lord spoke to me today.” I assured him that I loved Jesus as much as the next guy, and he drove me all the way to the building's front door.

The mechanic, Thomas, shook his head when I walked in, as if to say “she didn't make it, son.” He sniffled into his gray mustache and handed me a piece of paper: a seventy-five dollar invoice for their inspection and diagnostic. Nothing like paying for terrible news.


“So, you live in this thing, huh?” he asked me,

“Yup,” I said. “That's why there's a bed back there.”

It wasn't his fault, but I really resented poor Thomas for the eight hundred dollars I was going to have to fork over on Monday to have my car fixed.

“So where are you gonna go for the weekend?”

“I don't know,” I said, handing him my debit card.

I really didn't. I'd called the local Walmart while trying to hitch a ride, and they categorically forbade parking and sleeping in their lot.

“You shouldn't drive too far in that thing,” said Thomas.

“I know. You told me on the phone.”

“Cause the brake could go at any time.”

“Right. Are you gonna swipe my card?”

“Oh,” he sniffled again, handing it back to me. “You have to swipe it. The machine's right there.”

I paid quietly.

“Say, you got a tent in there?”

“I do...”

Five minutes later, my Highlander was trotting along a winding county road. Every time I pressed the pedal, the brakes groaned like an old man on the toilet -I wondered if I would even make the ten miles to the campground Thomas had suggested. The road narrowed and climbed along a lush hillside, and soon I could see the Buffalo River curving around cliffs and woods. Eventually, I turned onto a gravel road that plummeted back down to the valley floor. This should be good, I thought, switching to a lower gear and putting the brake pedal to the metal. The car made a noise like a pterodactyl's death squawk and inched its way down the slope. I kept the pedal on the floor -there was almost nothing pushing back. A mile later, my poor Toyota limped back onto the flat terrain of the campground.

It was a lovely place -the gravel gave way to a white dust road that followed the curve of the the river, bordered by dozens of campsites. They were all empty. I drove a quick lap and picked the best-looking one: a grassy patch shaded by thick trees, with a short path to the beach and a view of the water from the fire-pit. I pitched my tent and organized my camp quickly, eager to go dunk my head in the river. Before heading down to the beach, I checked my phone: no service. Guess it's just a very expensive alarm clock for the weekend, I thought while tossing it into the tent along with my sleeping bag.

The water was a deep, dark green, and frigid. I spent a long time dipping my toes, chickening out, skipping rocks, and doing it all over again before finally taking the plunge. It was so cold it hurt, but I swam across the river to a tall cliff. I heaved myself onto the rocks and watched the sun go down, then realized it had been too long and I had to re-acclimate to the water temperature. There were no rocks to skip on this side, so I sucked it up and cannon-balled back into the water.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. The eight hundred dollar tab coming up was still stuck in my throat. I made some food, wrestled with the crappy firewood I'd bought from a farmer down the road, and crawled into my sleeping bag for the night.

I slept ten hours and got up around noon. Bright tents had bloomed here and there around the campground, but my nearest neighbors were still a good hundred feet away. Two big marshmallow clouds surfed a perfect blue sky, and the sun already felt heavy on my shoulders. I had an early lunch and decided to go on a hike in the welcome shade of the forest. I packed up my rucksack and headed toward Camp Erbie, six miles up the Buffalo River.

The forest was downright Jurassic. The rocky trail, criss-crossed by huge roots, vanished into glowing green grass. Vines crept out of the earth and wrapped themselves around trees, following their tortured branches hanging over the water. I'd read on a sign that the banks of the river housed some eight hundred species of plants, but I hadn't expected to see so many right away. I passed too many wildflowers to count -bright orange, purple, red, and all peppering the same radioactively green grass. I stopped every ten seconds to look at oddly-shaped ferns or at trees growing right out of the river. I had to force myself to put my camera away, or I wouldn't have made it a quarter-mile down the path. As I looked up, a shimmering flicker caught my eye. It was a blooming tree loaded with little white flowers swinging in the breeze; they looked like a flock of white hummingbirds.

I crossed several creeks, all running over smooth sandstone. The water was so shallow that when I stood in it, it barely reached halfway up the soles of my thick hiking boots. The creeks all ran over white or black plates of sandstone, and the thin sheet of water had carved them all into perfect little staircases. It was wild to think about how many millions of years it might have taken for these trickles of water to wear down rock into smoothly cut square steps.

Near the river, the air was pleasant and humid, but I eventually climbed high up the flank of the valley. Through the thick scrawl of branches, I could still see the deep Heineken green of the river. I wondered what types of sediments or other geological deposits had turned it that color, and cursed myself for sleeping through “Into to Geology” in college. Soon, I made my way higher so that the river was only a thick piece of green yarn threaded through sandy beaches. Valley slopes gave way to canyons in places, and cliffs of white sandstone towered above the water, marred by deep black pockmarks.

The trail wandered in and out of the shade on the clifftops, and I started sweating. The lush grass persisted beneath the cover of the trees, but where the path meandered into the mid-day Arkansas sun, only dry, yellow grass grew up to my waist. I drank some water and ate a power bar, only then realizing that I was standing in front of a trail sign. Lost in all the sights, I had already walked half the distance to Camp Erbie.


During the second three miles of the hike, my eyes struggled to settle on anything -there was simply too much to take in. My thoughts refused to stay fixated as well, and I thought a thousand boring and strange things on the rest of the hike: how excited I was to climb in Yosemite this summer, a stupid but funny scene from “Scrubs” (a TV show I used to watch in high school), a girl I used to have a crush on in college that I'd never worked up the guts to talk to, what I'd do for work once my trip ended, a different set-up I would try to get my crappy firewood to catch later that night, all the friends I'd left in Boston and all the ones I was hoping to make in Seattle, turning back three thousand feet below the summit of Mount Rainier because of a bad storm, climbing in New Hampshire on blazing summer days, my childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, my little brother's upcoming graduation, and way too many more to list them all.

It kept going on and on, thought bleeding into thought, and all the while I walked down this amazing, beautiful trail, unable to keep up with the unfurling, discombobulated memories and dreams.

When I reached Camp Erbie, an old man was dragging his canoe onto the beach.

“How was it?” I called out to him.

“Perfect,” he replied with a smile.


He was right. Unwilling to break the spell by retracing my steps, I hiked up to the county road and thumbed a ride back to camp.