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[pct-l] snakebites



    Since Brick brought up the snake-subject, I just wanted to add a
couple of (useful, I hope) things:
    The newspaper article he quoted mentioned the heavy El Nino brush (in
the context of providing a larder for snakes); brush was my downfall when
I was rattlesnake-bit a few years ago, so I thought I'd bring up the
commonsensical point that if you wander off the trail into high-grassy
areas, or a part of trail that is heavily overgrown in Snake Country, you
might poke ahead of you with your staff/whatever - to avoid contacting a
hidden snake first with your body. Snakes like the shade when the day is
hot, and prowl through cover to hunt. I unwisely thrashed around in tall
brush to locate a spring, and was heavily-evomated in the upper arm - no,
I was not full-of-beer, as statistics would suggest [G]...
    The other thing is (in the highly-unlikely scenario of being bitten)
- clean the bitemarks at once. The #1 problem with snakebite is infection
(I've been bitten about a dozen times, I guess). Also wanted to say that
unless a bite is in one of the Bad Places the article mentions, or you're
very sensitive to venom, you don't need quick emergency
evacuation/antivenom treatment to "save" you. This last is not to poo-poo
medical personnel (many of whom will often adopt a "observe vitals/wait
n' see" approach, anyway, since antivenom tends to have such powerful
"side" effects); just to reassure anyone snakebit in a remote place....  
       bj

    Weeks ago, I assured Svein that blizzards were practically
non-existant in the thru-hike season; "sometimes afternoon snowfall at
high elevations" I think I added. Today there's a Winter Storm Warning in
the San Bernardinos/San Gabriels above 4500', and a foot of snow fallen
in the Sierra, where it snowed last week. Boy, do I feel guilty!

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