Snake Attack!

Close encounter of the ser­pen­tine kind.

I haven’t suf­fered any real injuries from wear­ing my Vibram Five Fin­gers, the glove-like “shoes” I’ve been run­ning in for the past 10 months. How­ever, I came dan­ger­ously close to a very seri­ous injury from a snake bite last week­end. While the shoes didn’t pro­vide any pro­tec­tion in the way of cov­er­age, the issue was actu­ally the light run­ning form they help me run in. Let me explain.

I was in Los Altos Hills in Cal­i­for­nia out­side of San Jose on pri­vate prop­erty at a com­mu­nity farm with the fam­ily last week­end. While my wife and girls checked out the crafts and mari­achi band (it was a Cesar Chavez cel­e­bra­tion) I decided to sneak in a run up into the hills sur­round­ing the property.

As I ran up the north side of a hill and began to descend into the hot­ter south side the ter­rain changed dra­mat­i­cally. Instead of the single-track trail being lined by grass and flow­ers there were small shrubs and chap­ar­ral. It was also a good 15 degrees warmer and very sunny. A num­ber of lizards scur­ried for cover as I approached.

The rocky and dusty trail began to zig zag under a canopy of tall shrubs and stubby trees. I was hav­ing a blast run­ning the trail as I picked up the pace. As I rounded one bend I heard some­thing like a rat­tle from under the shrubs. It was a dif­fer­ent sound than the lizards and birds rustling the leaves. I won­dered if it could be a rat­tlesnake. I had never come across a rat­tlesnake in the wild before so I couldn’t be cer­tain if that’s what it was.

I started to scan the trail ahead with a lit­tle more intent to make sure there weren’t any snakes sun­ning them­selves in my way. I sipped around a sharp curve and increased my speed on a short straight­away. Sud­denly I heard a loud rat­tle, a quick rus­tle, and a sharp hiss­ing sound right beside me. As I turned my head to the right I saw a flash of move­ment by my right knee. I stopped a few steps later and looked back to see a large rat­tlesnake reel­ing up, head pointed at me, show­ing his fangs and hiss­ing with his tongue. He was on the slope just off the trail, plac­ing him fright­en­ingly close to me as I ran by.

I quickly glanced around where I was stand­ing to make sure none of his bud­dies were nearby. I half expected sev­eral more rat­tlesnakes to appear and sur­round me like a posse in an old Western.

Find­ing the widest part of the trail to stand in I looked back at the snake. He was still raised up and obvi­ously pissed. “F*&$,” I shouted, try­ing to let some of the adren­a­line and fear escape my body. I glanced around my feet again to make dou­ble sure there were no other snakes.

Mr. Rat­tlesnake finally calmed down enough to slither across the trail, under a shrub, then across another sec­tion of the trail. He must have been about three and a half feet long. He was grey with black bands and a dia­mond head. I saw him take one last look at me from under the shrubs as if to say, “You got lucky this time, partner.”

Once the path was clear I sum­moned enough courage to run on, drawn by the sound of rush­ing water and promise of a water­fall at the bot­tom of the ravine. It only took me 20 feet, though, before I real­ized I was too scared to con­tinue. I ripped a branch off of a small tree over­hang­ing the path. I then turned around and headed back up the trail, stomp­ing my feet and swish­ing the stick across the trail as I went.

I felt rather exposed in my Five Fin­gers as I walked along. There was noth­ing pro­tect­ing me from a snake attack except measly mesh on the top and a thin rub­ber sole under­neath. Being all alone, out of range of any cell-phone tow­ers, made me feel even more vul­ner­a­ble, even though I know rat­tlesnakes don’t attack unless provoked.

I hadn’t even gone 50 yards up the path when I encoun­tered yet another rat­tlesnake! I hadn’t seen a sin­gle one in my life and sud­denly I stum­ble upon sev­eral within a few min­utes. Insane. I get chills look­ing at snakes in the zoo, when they’re behind pro­tec­tive glass! Now I’m star­ing at a sec­ond ven­omous rat­tlesnake with no pro­tec­tion at all.

I stomped as hard as I could a few times and the snake gave up his sun bath and slith­ered off of the trail. I don’t think many peo­ple take this remote trail, and the rat­tlesnakes have claimed it for themselves.

Yet I now real­ize that the biggest prob­lem was my run­ning style. Land­ing on the fore­foot results in an almost cat-like silence. And even more impor­tantly, as far as snakes are con­cerned, I did not make much of a vibra­tion with my foot strike. These snakes sim­ply had lit­tle to no warn­ing that I was com­ing! Fancy that, I go to all this trou­ble to learn a light foot strike and it almost gets me a giant bite in the ass from a ven­omous viper!

I finally made it back to the farm with­out any fur­ther encoun­ters. You can be sure I walked in the mid­dle of the road the rest of the day!

I think I’m going to stick to the muddy trails for awhile, and only head into rat­tlesnake ter­ri­tory again with mul­ti­ple run­ners (who heel strike with a lot of force!).

In Case of Snake Bite

I am not a med­ical doc­tor nor expert in this mat­ter. Do your own research!
I read later that if you are bit­ten by a rat­tlesnake you are NOT to cut and/or attempt to suck the venom out. This doesn’t help at all. If that snake had caught me – and I think he was within inches with his fangs – I would have to sit down, ele­vate the leg, and wait for 20 to 30 min­utes for the venom to local­ize before attempt­ing to walk out. I can assure you that would have been a very hard thing to do.

Have you had a close encounter with a snake? Or other dan­ger­ous wildlife?

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