FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Mike P.]

Would like to here about some stories of encounters with snakes while mineral prospecting and some good tip on safety while mineral hunting in the western states

[crocoite]

A common hazard in Australia!

[Peter Megaw]

At the right (wrong) time of day you can see plenty! I've seen as many as 42 in an afternoon at the Rowley Mine and 33 in a day at Tombstone. I have also gone entire field seasons without seeing any at all. Worst was roping in to a mine in the Gleeson district in January to find a den of many hundreds of rattlers massed at the bottom on the decline. After checking them out for a few minutes from the comparative safety of being on belay 10 feet above them I got out of there quickly. Turns out this is a well known den and a rattlesnake "artist" who makes belts and hatbands out of rattlesnake skins uses this place as his supply store!

Pit vipers are all you have to worry about (rattlesnakes, copperheads and water moccasins) for coral snakes and Gila monsters it takes active stupidity on your part to get bitten.

All snakes can sense vibrations through their bellies...so stepping solidly...thereby sending out the message that there's something clumsy and WAAY to big to eat in the neighborhood usually cases them to vamoose. Horse and cows have this down pat!

When its hot out snakes tend to hide in cool places...like mine adits...so be careful entering. (AND only go underground with permission and knowledge of the potential dangers of abandoned underground mines!). Tossing a few rocks in and listening for rattling is a good first step, followed by keeping your eyes opened completely as you go in. Remember to give your eyes a few minutes to adjust to the gloom so you can see them before they can sense you.

Snakes need to warm up before moving much so they often bask in the sun in the mornings and afternoons as they are getting started. This is when you're most likely to see them and when they may be torpid enough for you to get close before they pick up on you.

A really important rule of thumb is that snakes can only strike a maximum of 2/3rds of their body length...and then only if fully coiled and backed up against something solid. This means a 6 foot monster is only a danger if you are within 4 feet! Likewise a more common to encounter 3' snake has to be within 2' of you to be a problem. This means if you hear rattling, keep cool and figure out where its coming from. If it's out of range simply move away quickly...if its in range move away quietly and promptly (assuming you have landed already).

Also remember that you are not food for a snake so if they do strike it is in defense. If they bite you it is a good chance it is a dry bite...they can choose whether or not to inject venom and since they need venom to eat and it takes time to accumulate they don't want to waste it on you. Bets are off on this if you're dealing with a juvenile snake that hasn't learned to conserve its venom...so often the 2-3'ers are a bigger risk than the monsters.

All that aside...a majority of snake bites stem from people either harassing the snake (like throwing rocks at it to make it rattle) or trying to catch them...aka dumb human tricks.

Leave them alone and give them a wide berth and they will return the favor. The worst you're likely to get is a good scare!

That is unless you're collecting someplace like Australia, Asia and Africa where the snakes have "two-step" poisons...you take two steps after being bitten before you drop dead!

[LeadMineGal]

Um, is that snake den in Arizona?
Maybe living in (cold) New England isn't so bad after all!

[gemlover]

Maine good, the only state that has never had a native pit viper in it. All other states in US have at least one pit viper in it. Here in SC we have all four types. Fortunately, the coral snakes only occur near the coast.

John

[Gail]

Leadminegal, I saw a rattler on a rock on Cape Cod when I reached for what I thought was a bicycle tire! I never ran so fast in all my life as it turned out to be a timber rattlesnake.

[Pierre Joubert]

Very interesting contribution Peter. To end up in a pit of mating Rattlers is one's worst nightmare. I have found this bit of technical data that will ad to what Peter said.
https://www.llu.edu/public-health/ebs/hayes/research-a-snake-venom.page
(link normalized by FMF)

My worst experience happened a good number of years ago when I returned from spending a few days up in the mountains. I organized a lift to pick me up at a certain time at the bottom of the mountain, and I was a bit late (no cellphones then), walking as fast as I could with my back pack down a dry riverbed. I jumped over a hollow between rocks and the next moment had a large Cape Cobra lunge at my legs. It must have missed me by millimeters. I ran in mid air for a few meters and while I gathered my breath and relocated my heart, I stood and watched the cobra as it sailed for cover underneath some big rocks. The Cape cobras will only bite in self defense and in this case, it had nowhere to go to avoid me. That was a close shave! Had that snake got hold of me, I would not have been able to tell my story. I have walked a few thousand miles in the 'wild' and even though I occasionally encounter snakes, I have had only this bad encounter.

[Mark Ost]

As a field geologist with lots of time outdoors, Pete said it well. Usually you are making enough racket that they will move to avoid you. In the east we have the three main ones, rattlesnakes, copperheads, water mocassins and, if you are in Florida, coral snakes (which are so small you have to want to get bitten to get a bite). I have very funny snake stories like the time one of our UXO specialists stepped over a harmless black snkae and he went around 4 feet striaght up much to our delight! Or the time one of our New York City geologists, coming down here, ran into a harmless snake and went screaming (literally) through the woods. I told her to be quiet as she was disturbing the wildlife. The snake went screaming the other way! Actually I rarely see them in the field as we make a lot of noise. A wild life biologist took me on a snake hunt for canebrake rattlesnakes. He took us to within 20 feet of one and asked if we couldl see it. It took me some time to pick it out. Superb camoflage. They will rarely rattle and prefer to stay hidden (this may not apply in Florida or out west) unless you get on top of them. Peaceful creatures actually. Mocassins need respect but are not death on wheels though the bite is serious. Easy to avoid too. Most people get bitten by handling them you can guess which sex is liable for that! Men.

Now Pete's "Indiana Jones" impression is hard to top. He probubly did not have a torch to drop on rappell.

[Mark Ost]

Hey Pete, that looks like the Arizona retirement home my kids have picked out for me. Do they have a jaccuzi?

[Peter Megaw]

Yes, and Happy Hour from 5-7 daily

[LeadMineGal]

I am aware that there are venomous snakes just about everywhere, but sightings have been rare and are definitely not a common occurrence here in Western Mass.

One of my scariest encounters with a non-venomous snake was when I nearly stepped on a Hognose snake (Puff Adder), also called the 'Great Pretender'.
I believe I may hold the record on total area covered without touching the ground.

This is a great topic and a terrific opportunity to share stories, have a few laughs and learn valuable lessons that we can take with us on our adventures.

[Pierre Joubert]

[LeadMineGal]

[chris]

Hi,

I'm not a field seeker as you are so I never encountered snakes while looking for minerals, just spiders. However I do remember an encounter. Was hiking on a tree covered trail. I passed over what I took for a dark branch, so I didn't worry much about it. But after a couple of meters, my brain realized I had just happened to pass over one of the most dangerous viper you can find in France.

I turned back carefully to discover she was gone the other way. In France many people are afraid of viper encounters. But when you look at the statistics one learns that only 2/3 people die every year of a snake bite, while dozens are victims of bees & wasps.

PS : Aspic viper loves milk so much that you can sometimes find her sucking milk from cow pies...

[Pierre Joubert]

[Mark Beregszaszi]

I am feeling so happy and unhappy at the same time about not living in Australia..

So many great minerals there... So many animals that can kill you with one bite or sting...

Here in Hungary only two species of venomous snakes live, they are rare and even if you get bitten it is supposed to be like a few bee stings. Their venom is dangerous for little kids only.

[cascaillou]

common mineral hunting risks:

-venomous snakes, scorpions, and wasp/hornet swarms
-sunstoke/dehydration
-not bringing adequate equipment, clothing or not minding the weather when trekking high in the mountains, cliff-climbing or spelunking
-breaking a leg from a stupid slip while isolated in the mountain or deep down a mine (never go alone and always tell someone who's not coming about where exactly you're going and when you should be back at the latest!)
-cliff or underground gallery collapsing on your head (especially in the beginning of spring due to thaw), even a single small pebble falling from a cliff can seriously injure you from hitting your head.
-falling into a mine shaft (sometimes a shaft can be hidden under a few rotten wood boards, or hidden by dense vegetation)
-cliff-climbing/spelunking fall
-not minding the weather and go spelunking and getting caught by underground water flow from a storm and eventually drowning
-your friend destabilize a large rock while climbing a steep slope while you're a few meters below, and the rock hurtle down right to you (btw, never throw a rock into a slope, there might be someone down there, out of your sight)
-breaking a large rock with the sledge hammer, and the rock ends up falling on your leg
-sledge-hammering your finger or your wrist
-deep cuts from sharp rocks/crystal splinters (notably when escavating a crystal pocket)
-getting a tiny rock shrapnel into your eye from a sledge hammer hit on hard rock
-spelunking specific risk of suffocation from toxic gasses (CO2 and H2S), let alone firedamp in coal mines
-finding yourself out of light deep down a mine
-getting lost in some huge underground maze
-travelling some not-so-secure part of the world hunting for stones and getting into troubles with bad guys
-mishandling of explosives is also a reccurent problem among miners

Truly, we are heroes :-)

[Matt_Zukowski]

When I was in college, I was visiting a friend who took me out to prospect for fluorescent minerals. We waited until night, and with a couple of beers in us, started to go over waste piles at a mine. We both saw a nice xtal, and started reaching for it, when something didn't look right, and so we stopped short of grabbing it. We learned that night that scorpions also fluoresce.

[Arizona]

When I lived in Sierra Vista we used to do some caving. One cave on the east side of fort Huachuca had a small cavern before you would get on your hands and knees and climb through the corrugated tube that marked the entrance of the cave. There were six of us that day. As we all were getting our gear together I decided to sit on a rock ledge and wait. Before I could lower my ass down my brother gave me a shove sending my melon to the hard rock ceiling of the cavern. I was pissed ! I started to speak up when he pointed to the juvenile rattler coiled up in the exact spot I was going to sit on. Ummm..... Thank you.

[cascaillou]

concerning snakes, it is true that most venomous species are also fearful and usually get away as soon as they feel vibrations from your footsteps coming, however, in the hot part of the day, they are drowsy and resting. In which case there's a risk that neither you or the snake notice each other until you put your feet on it, or sit on it.
By the way, when trekking, if you wanna have a rest, before sitting on a rocks or on the ground, it's not a bad idea to hit repeatedly the rock/ground with a stick to create vibrations (so to wake up any unseen drowsy snakes)

Besides that, your best protection against snakes is appropriate trekking clothing. If you're wearing trekking shoes that cover your ankles, trekking socks, and a long legged trekking trouser then there's much less risk that a snake bite would actually reach your skin than if you're wearing a short and flip-flops. Anyway, it is common sense that short and flip-flops are not appropriate for mountain trekkin, due to fast changing weather (can get cold) and risk of slipping (twisting your ankle), but many tourists still don't get it.