Summer in Utah is snake season. Since I do a lot of running in the hills near my house, I always have to be careful navigating the hills because you never know what might be slithering around your feet. 2020 was especially exciting, herpetologically speaking.

Sighting #1, 5/30/2020

Roxy and I saw this guy way out there, probably four miles from home during a Saturday long run. He was in the process of slithering under a bush, but I managed to get most of him. He’s a good-sized Great Basin gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer deserticola), maybe six feet long.

Sighting #2, 5/31/2020

This one scared the crap out of me. It happened just a day after the previous sighting. I had run with Roxy up to the top of the paved trail that goes behind our house. From there, a game trail goes across a dirt dam and joins a bunch of ATV trails just north of the Fiddlers Canyon neighborhood where we live. Roxy had stopped to sniff at something, and I nearly stepped on this beautiful Great Basin rattlesnake (Crotalus lutosus) as I scrambled down from the dam. I circled back around, put Roxy back on her leash, and then managed to snap a couple of photos before carefully walking around this one.

Sighting #3, 6/9/2020

My boys and I encountered this one on an evening walk in the hills. I’d never seen these particular markings before, so I sent the photo to a running friend who teaches biology at Southern Utah University. This one, he said, is a night snake (Hypsiglena torquata) and it’s apparently very rare to see them during the daylight hours.

Sighting 4: 6/15/2020

Here’s another one that gave us a bit of a scare. This Great Basin rattlesnake (Crotalus lutosus) was sunning itself in the middle of the trail about two miles from home. As we approached, she started squirming and got defensive, so we gave her plenty of room. It’s interesting how different her coloring is from the Great Basin rattler we saw earlier in the year.

Sighting 5, 7/7/2020

This one’s another night snake (Hypsiglena torquata), a little bitty one, and we actually saw this one at night. He was crossing the dirt road as Roxy and I ran our final mile by headlamp in the dark. This guy was less than a foot long, and I checked the road the next day to be certain he made it across the road without getting squished.

Sighting 6, 10/2/2020

The last sighting of this year’s snake season was this little Great Basin gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer deserticola), which was sunning herself on the paved trail right behind our house. I wasn’t really paying attention and I nearly stepped on her. I decided to name her Carole, because she was just “Baskin’.”

And here’s a tarantula (Theraphosidae) we saw up in the hills, for good measure: