[Az-Geocaching] Critters near caches

[Trisha]

Hi all,

I thought I'd take this opportunity to remind everyone to be careful
around any caches that are in areas that could be good habitat for
rattlesnakes (and I guess you should be careful of scorpions, black
widows, etc....some of these "urban micros" require reaching into
likely critter spots). This fall/wet weather seems to bring them out
in the daytime.

I recently had a face-to-face with a LARGE Western Diamondback
Rattlesnake up on the Agua Fria near Black Canyon City. See GCGK5D.

I imagine there are areas in the metro Phoenix area where you could
find pit-vipers, but take special care in the boonies.

It was kinda funny....I'm not afraid of snakes and, having quite a bit
of reptile and walking-in-the-middle-of-nowhere experience, I walk
carefully, and noisily. Luckily! It gave this big guy time to rattle
and move off to hide. I was innocently following the GPS to the cache
while hubby was taking a pic of a pretty cactus about 20 feet behind
me when he heard the rattle (cicadas were in the trees, but this was
louder) and then heard me calmly say, "Um, we have a rattlesnake in
the way, right there...a big one." By the time he walked to where I
was stopped in my tracks and watching the snake, he wasn't able to get
a pic (it went under a rock). I pick up non-poisonous snakes, Steve
Irwin style, just for fun, but rattlers deserve a respectful distance.

The other humorous part was that we were on the way to the DBacks
game...and ran into a Diamondback, and we did NOT want this one's
autograph!!

Have fun and BE SAFE OUT THERE!!

Trisha "Lightning1996YCJP"
Prescott