Hooray for lizards

The first time I saw a rattlesnake, I was 11 years old, and naively more fascinated than afraid. The woman I was accompanying on this particular hike in Carmel Valley, informed me that what we were tentatively trying to appease was a baby rattler, and that I must give it an exaggerated girth when passing. Baby rattlers, she claimed, are skittish and defensive. They are incapable of controlling their venom injections, and release the entire content of their sacs of poison in their unlucky victim.

At the trail head on Thursday, as we contemplated which trail to hike at Molera Beach, I remembered the tiny, scared rattler coiled up on a rock on the trail in Tassajara. I asked the ranger if any snake sitings had been reported, what with the uncharacteristic intense heat and sun Big Sur had been enjoying over the past couple of days. She replied with a smiling oh yes, seemingly unfazed by this fact, and advised us to just "give them space."

Rattlesnakes are not an aggressive serpent, unlike, say Bushmasters, or Black Mambas. They are, like most wild creatures, more fearful of humans than we are meant to be of them. These facts, however, did nothing to assuage my anxieties as we climbed the Bluff Trail, winding through grassy field, poison oak bush, and rocky dust. The slightest rustling in the grass to my left sent me sailing to the right, lizard tails and twigs became venomous serpents, and I knew that we weren't the only ones slinking out of our hovels after a long hibernation.

As we rounded a rocky bend, poison oak bushes reaching their oily leaves toward us in the ravine to our right, a sage-covered hill sloping up to our left, a quick, loud, machine gun fire rapid rattle sounded from the brush on my left. My heart leapt into my throat, just enough time for the rattler to make a brief shaking pause, and then start up again, this time unceasing for an angry 15 seconds. Meanwhile, I had managed to yelp, elevate 10 feet into the air and about-face mid-ascent, and dart in the opposite direction of the sound - and Jean-Baptiste - like an Olympic 500 meter dash competitor whose life depends on her winning.

Once I'd frantically established what I considered to be a safe distance between my exposed legs and the still rattling belly crawler, I called to Jean-Baptiste, wailing at him not to go back to where we'd been separated. Terror shifted my emotional stability as I rifled through my mental rolodex of worst case scenarios: the snake biting Jean-Baptiste, me having to run back to the trail head and call an ambulance, all the while petrified at the idea of having to retrace the six miles we'd already covered, certain that more snakes were lurking, waiting to sink their fangs into my now sunburning calves, Jean-Baptiste losing a limb... or worse.

About 10 minutes later, after working myself up into a good, hysterical lather, I heard the voices of an approaching couple and immediately took comfort in the increase of numbers in our human front. Trying to control my own rattling voice, so as not to sound as phobically wigged out as I actually was, I informed them that a rattlesnake was ferociously blocking the passage, refusing to budge or let up on the furious rattling that would ensue when Jean-Baptiste would attempt to slide by. Topless man with long hair claimed that he wasn't afraid and would just run past; if he died, his karma would likely jump a few rungs. His girlfriend, somewhat more reasonable, dissuaded him from this foolish act of bravado, and jokingly proposed talking the snake off the trail -- a veritable snake charmer.

Eventually, Jean-Baptiste and two other hikers who'd joined him on the other side of the rattling fault line, who'd also had it with the snake's trail hogging ways, shuffled past the still aggravated creature. The karmically inclined couple on my side decided to make running leaps past it, much to all of our horror. But they survived. We all did.

On the way back, I caught myself lamenting the presence of such venomous snakes in such a breathtakingly gorgeous place. Andrew Molera park is a favorite hiking haunt of mine; it seemed a shame that in order to enjoy it, one has to brave the possibility of encountering stubborn wildlife who might bite you. But really, the chance for adventure in the glorious wild among the mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and cliffs, all of this possibility of danger, even fatal, is what makes the time spent in the thick of it so deeply enriching. The scary is the best part.


The rock skipping competition on the beach once you make it off the dusty trail is pretty fantastic, too.