State enters peak rattlesnake season
Experts recommend hiker precautions
With temperatures rising across the state, hikers are not the only ones who have returned to the trails. Throughout the spring, rattlesnakes have come to populate hiking trails on sunny days, leading wildlife experts to advise that hikers stay particularly alert.
Rattlesnakes are cold-blooded and hibernate underground throughout the winter months. But in the spring, summer and explained Jason Clay, public information officer at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, rattlesnakes can be found sunbathing “out on trails, on roads, and on rocks.”
“Sightings in the mornings this time of year are common,” Clay said. “As you get into the summer, it’s evenings as the days are cooling down.”
Identifying rattlesnakes might be difficult given their resemblance to bull snakes; the species have similar markings, and bull snakes may even mimic rattling sounds to scare off predators. Clay said that the greatest distinction between the snakes is their tails and heads, as well as rattlesnakes’ slightly larger size.
“The tail is a primary key,” he said. “At no point in a rattlesnake’s life will it have a pointed tail.”
Colorado has 30 species of snakes, three of which are rattlesnakes. The prairie rattlesnake — the most common species in the state — resides on trails below 9,000 feet in elevation. Despite rattlesnakes’ prevalence, Clay said that avoiding bites is easy with simple precautions.
“The biggest thing is keeping your pets on a leash when you’re out hiking, and not hiking with headphones or earbuds in so you can hear what’s around you,” he said.
If a hiker is bitten, the best practice is to immediately call a medifall, cal professional and stay calm, Colorado Parks and Wildlife species conservation coordinator Tina Jackson advised Colorado Outdoors, the Parks and Wildlife podcast. But bites can be easily avoided by walking around rattlesnakes and not attempting to touch them, approach them, or move them off the trail, Clay said.
“If you do spot a rattlesnake, don’t ever try to move that rattlesnake off the trail. … Stop in place and try to identify where it’s coming from instead of continuing to pursue forward,” he said. “Most of all, bites happen when people try to move it or get too close to get a picture, those types of things.”