For those who were out with us Thursday sorry in the delay in this post.  Tim M., Kevin, Matthew and I rode through Calavera after work on Thursday.  But the big news is that we ran into not one but two Rattlesnakes on the ride.

The first one was on the spine.  Kevin and I rode past it, but Tim M. who was doing some 'pushing' on his bike heard it rattling and as you can see it was coiled... so he quickly got out of the way.

The rattlesnake is that dark brown blob you see slightly above center in the image above.  This was the closer of my two photos, but of course the thing is, in this case you don't get close to the snake because you are dealing with the business end.  Thus while I held my phone out and pointed I wasn't getting within 10 feet.  We had to pull Tim M's bike away from the area since as you can see in the image below the trail is litterally alongside where the snake was.

This is most of the way up on the spine and by the time Kevin and I reached this point the blood was pounding in our ears and we were pedalling hard to keep moving through the obstacles.  Plus Tim M was at least 25 seconds behind me and so the snake just hadn't gotten there yet (that's our story and we're sticking to it

The second rattler was found by Kevin while the rest of us were looking at rattler #1.  This was up past the top  of the Spine off on a closed trail.  Kevin decided to explore that trail and ran into the friend below.  You'll note this image is a little better, that's because I was willing to work with the rattle end of the snake as opposed to the business end and get a little (but not much) closer.

Now believe it or not these are the first rattlers we've seen this year.  On the other hand it does make me 4 for 4, that is 4 years mountain biking and 4 years of running into at least one snake every year...