The buzz of a rattlesnake will give just about anyone the heebie-jeebies. Now imagine encountering rattlesnake while belly crawling into cave.
That’s what two National Park cave explorers did by accident. They managed to snap a photo of the snake before a careful retreat.
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Persistence Cave in Wind Cave National Park is a small, relatively recently discovered cave. It is filled with mud, but National Park officials think a little bit of digging could open up some tight passageways and lead to larger rooms. This spring two cavers, Marc Ohms and Blase LaSala decided to go back into Persistence.
“And we were just going to work on the end of the dig and about 50 feet into the cave we ran across a rattlesnake,” says Ohms who is a physical science technician at Wind Cave. “He was about two feet away. Considering he was about three feet long, you know that’s…” Ohms ends with a laugh.
It should be noted that getting to the end of Persistence Cave isn’t all that easy. It’s a belly crawl in a tight small passageway.
“You know when you’re on the surface you kind of have the rest of the world to escape to, around you. And I think the snake probably feels the same way,” says Ohms. "When you’re in a crawl way that’s a foot high. You both are kind of vying for a very small space. You don’t have the rest of the world to retreat to as easily so it’s a little more intense,” says Ohms.
Despite that intensity the two cavers still managed to snap a photo of the snake. Ohms says that the rattler was moving slowly in the cool environment. Also he says, it didn’t rattle.
“It kind looked like it just woke up from a hard night. It was moving rather slowly. But it did not rattle its tail at all. If we would have put our hand or foot on it, I’m sure it would have been more than willing to bite us,” says Ohms.
Ohms says he and LaSala exited the cave without hurting the snake. They don’t plan to go back into Persistence until later in the summer. The hope is that by then any snakes will have left their winter hibernation spot.
