Rattlesnakes!

 

Mandy and I encountered our first rattlesnake of the season on the Homestead Trail today. I was concerned that the popularity of this Trail might lead to an unfortunate human/dog/snake interaction. I called a Ranger and he walked me through a way to coax the critter off the trail by tapping my walking pole in front of his head. He was watching me during this process but I since was over twice his length away from me I felt relatively safe. Fortunately snakes don’t fly and this one took off after a couple of minutes of tapping.