Silver Peak... rattle snake tells us to stop

yobtaf · Post by **yobtaf** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:23 pm

Headed out with a friend and his son who was in town for a few days and our sights were set on silver peak on the north side of Big Bear. Its on the Hundred Peaks section here http://angeles.sierraclub.org/hps/guides/21i.htm . It sounded fun and its just about 20 miles from the house. We headed out a bit later than we wanted to, we left the house about 7am. After we found the trail head we head out in the wrong direction. The area has been washed out pretty good from rains and run off. About .6 miles in we figured out we had taken the wrong route.

We got back to where we felt was the right area and just started heading towards the white on the side of the hill. From what we had read we had to head to the white area then head up the canyon. the canyon just to the right of the white spot is where you scramble up to the spur ridge then over to the east to the summit

We past a lot of cool thing on the way there.

But after some bush wacking we were to the white area.

Time to watch a little TV, I hope Jerry Springer is on..

The white area

Heading up the canyon

At the middle of canyon you come to this mine

At this mine is where I jumped like a winner on the price is right and screamed like a girl on steroids. I was about to put my foot down and this guy shook his maraca

He headed down in his hole, but then his or her little ones came out and went into the mine

After tossing a few small rocks we heard the sounds of maracas here and there so we decided that this was far enough. Well they made the decision for us. We turned around and headed out thinking maybe November would be a better time.

It was still a great day out and we found a lot of trash if anyone needs anything, and a rock with a painting on it.

Thanks for looking

PackerGreg · Post by **PackerGreg** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:14 pm

yobtaf: "Look, mine!"

snake: "No, mine"

yobtaf · Post by **yobtaf** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:23 am

PackerGreg wrote: ↑yobtaf: "Look, mine!"

snake: "No, mine"

you got that right.

We didn't see any boot tracks at all along the way, but I have never seen so many critter tracks. Our tire tracks were the only ones on the road heading in.

hvydrt · Post by **hvydrt** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:10 am

Cool shelter!

Elwood · Post by **Elwood** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:34 am

Very nice report and pictures. Especially liked the snake pictures. A bit far north for them, but your crotalus looks an awful lot like a c. ruber ; the Red Diamondback.

Mike P · Post by **Mike P** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:54 am

Hey Elwood, that snake is a C. mitchelli, speckled rattlesnake ... common on that side of Big Bear.

Elwood · Post by **Elwood** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:17 am

Thank you for the correction. I slither corrected.

yobtaf · Post by **yobtaf** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:29 am

http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/p ... rrhus.html

ok here are a bunch of pics of the speckled rattlesnake.

yobtaf · Post by **yobtaf** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:42 am

here is one more pic