Here’s from a trip way back in May, where Kris and I struck out on snakes, but not for lack of effort. We hiked so hard I seriously had trouble walking the next day, and it takes quite a bit to do that to me.

We got up before the sun and headed South to take the long way in hopes of seeing some snakes warming themselves in the early sunlight. No such luck. That set the tone for what was a pretty herp-free trip. Here’s some pictures from the first day.

Bullfrog

Whiptail

Fur Bug

We camped at the base of the mountain and got up before sunup once again to see what we could find. We ended up hiking to the top of the mountain before noon, climbing a full mile up over 5.2 miles of trail. What to do when you get up there? Hurry your ass back down before dark!

First, however, you have to wake up and find the will to put on your boots.

The filthy underbelly of herping

Lots of nice scenery, which you can’t look at much without ending up part of it.

Supertrail

Supertrail

Supertrail

Supertrail

Supertrail

This is why you don’t want to get struck by lightning. Someone should have told this tree.

Lightning-gutted tree

No snakes, but we saw lots of lizards who didn’t seem to mind people very much.

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

Yarrow\'s Spiny Lizard

When snakes are hiding, expect to see plenty of tree pictures.

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Here are a couple more Banded Rock Rattlesnakes (Crotalus lepidus kauberi) found while searching for willardi this year.

Here is an adult male of average size, and probably the prettiest I’ve seen of this species in my limited experience.

Crotalus lepidus klauberi

Crotalus lepidus klauberi

Crotalus lepidus klauberi

… and another young male out and about in the night.

Crotalus lepidus klauberi

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Being out in the wildnerness looking for snakes puts a person in a lot of attractive surrounding, and every trip comes with a story. Here are a few HDR (and non HDR) pictures taken in-between snakes.

HDR Picture in S.E. Arizona

HDR Picture of Santa Cruz County

HDR Picture in Arizona

Praying Mantis

This one is (we believe) an impromptu grave. It was found just 3 or 4 miles North of the Mexican border in a very high-activity area. Someone not making the trip is something that happens from time to time. The picture does not show it well, but it’s a rectangular pile about 6 feet long and 3 feet across, and the only pile of rocks in the area.

grave

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Here’s a neonate we found out and about in South Eastern Arizona. Pissy little guy with a bright red nose. Maybe that’s why he was so upset.

c-bilineatus-080908

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Here’s my second-ever Speckled Rattlesnake (Crotalus mitchellii) I’ve ever found. The somewhat surreal look to the pictures is due to a compositing technique known as HDR, which are becoming quite popular these days. Fortunately for me, a goo 90% of the HDR pictures out there are of old barns or graphiti, so at least I’m doing something unique.

Speckled Rattlesnake

Speckled Rattlesnake (closer)

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Here’s a good example of the diamondbacks that live up in Yavapai county. A lot of the same greys we see down closer to Phoenix, but a little better contrast in my experience.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

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On a slow night, we found a young Black-Tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus) out and about. I got a few pictures, but the area wasn’t pose-friendly. Oh well … a nice snake regardless.

Crotalus molossus

Crotalus molossus

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… continued from parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Here are some more pictures from the drive back to Arizona.

Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Near Silver City, New Mexico

HDR Photo in New Mexico

That night we stayed just inside New Mexico, and spent a few hours along the border.

sunset

… when herps are few, you’ll get scenery pictures.

In the night, we found a couple toads … a Great Plains Toad (Anaxyrus cognatus) and a male Couch’s Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus couchii):

Great Plains Toad

Couch\'s Spadefoot (male)

The amount of bugs flying all around us was just unreasonable at this point. There are usually a lot of creepy things flying around my head out there, attracted to the head lamp, but this night was just ridiculous. I was pulling crawling things out of my hair a full hour after getting back in the truck for the last time.

Anyway, that being said, here’s a little longnose snake we found who was as annoyed to be found as we were by the bugs we had to endure to get a picture. He wasn’t cooperative, and neither were we. This is the best we could do:

Long Nosed Snake

In the morning, I got up early to do a little hiking and see if anything was awake. I found a snake pretty quickly. It was a young Sonoran Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer affinis) of the usual high-pink color I usually find on this side of state.

He wasn’t happy about being woken up.

Sonoran Gophersnake

I spent some time hiking and didn’t find anything else, but it was hard to be disappointed.

Chiricuahua Mountains

Chiricuahua Mountains

I’ll end this series the same way our trip ended. While driving back to the hotel to get Kelly up and go home, I found the writhing body of a Mojave Rattlesnake. Both head and tail had been removed while the animal was still alive. Blood was splattered all around. This happened within minutes of my arrival.

Everything\'s Dumber in Texas

This is the kind of macho bullshit perpetuated by the idiots of Sweetwater Texas in their yearly redneck festival, where hundreds of dusty people too arrogant to realize they’re internationally recognized as personified ignorance gather to see who has the biggest hat. Of course this was not in Texas, but Rodeo, New Mexico.

It’s very hard to spend so much time with these animals and not become absolutely furious when finding something like this. This is, to me, similar to how most would feel if they found a dog in the street missing its head, somehow still moving. This was in my thoughts for days. I’m not kidding when I say I hope that the severed head got off one last bite. Sad to say these were my thoughts … but I guess I don’t prefer to be out in the desert whenever I can because I like people.

… and if any residents of Sweetwater end up on this site due to some Googling … please, please, please … buy your kids a book or two, and make Wednesday “No Beating!” day.

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… continued from parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

We went for a short hike along the Delaware River in the afternoon. Temperatures were a little too hot to see much other than some whiptails. I did get some pictures of a softshell turtle. It was my first, so I was quite satisfied with this being the only notable animal of the trip.

First, a picture of what is probably a dinner-plate sized painted turtle making its way across the river.

Painted Turtle

Here’s a large spider making friends with a damselfly.

Best Pals

Another spider hanging out in the grass … this one a little more pointy than the other.

Potential Afternoon-Ruinner

The soft shelled turtle:

Spiny Softshelled Turtle

Here’s an HDR picture of evening clouds moving in from the South.

Standing in a big shadow

After watching the bat flight from the caverns, we went out again. Pretty quickly, we found the second of the really interesting diamondbacks on the trip. A big chocolate-brown Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox).

Crotalus atrox

A young male tarantula out and about:

Tarantula

… and last for the night, a Red-Spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus).

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… continued from part 1, 2 and 3.

In the morning we went to see the caves. I’ll keep this post separate, since it’s a lot of cave pictures, and this site isn’t called caveexplorer.com.

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns

If you want to see more, I uploaded the full set to my Flickr account.

That’s it for this one! I have a few more posts to go.

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