Article: Snake encounters. (protection from poisonous snakes)

One warm spring day many years ago, while hiking alone along the rocky cliffs of the lower Salmon River in Idaho, I peered over a neck-high boulder for a better look at the water and found myself face-to-face with a rattlesnake. The snake seemed huge, sprawled endlessly atop the rock, apparently basking in the morning sun. Its thick, spade-shaped head was inches from my nose, its tongue flicking, eyes dark, beady and sinister. I suppose it would be amusing now to have a photo of my facial expression at that moment from the snake's angle of view. I gasped and flung myself backward. In a microsecond the snake had withdrawn its head and coiled into the classic defensive ...

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