Tag Archives: rattlesnakes

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SNAKES IN THE GRASS

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Desert blooms…and pollen

 

Spring in Arizona means three things…wildflowers, allergies and snakes.  This past week our winter weather finally came to a close.  After record rainfall and freezing temperatures (including snow!) we can finally break out our sleeveless tops and Bermuda shorts.  Also top of mind is that we should have done more bicep curls and leg squats all winter, but that’s a topic for another day.  With April we find that patios are once again used for wine sipping and lounging.  Sounds great, right?  After all, this glorious weather is what brought us to Arizona to begin with.  But there are a lot of downsides to Spring in the desert.  While I know I won’t get any sympathy from those friends in the Midwest who are still digging out from blizzards and dirty, melting snow, we desert rats have our challenges too.  And it’s more than shoveling sunshine.

 

     The lovely, annoying Palo Verde tree

First, I have to say that the brightly colored flowers and blooming trees so ubiquitous this time of year are one of the true treasures of the Sonoran desert.  Every cactus seems to have it’s own unique flower, each more spectacular than the next.  The Palo Verde trees are a riot of yellow blooms that are gorgeous to view – from INSIDE the house.  Because these lovely works of nature’s bounty bring with them allergies of gargantuan proportions.  I don’t know anyone who isn’t using some sort of nasal spray or allergy tablet.  Even those who have taken dramatic steps to curb allergies can be found with Kleenex stuffed in every pocket and eyes that stream from morning ’til night.  The local Walgreens can barely keep the allergy meds in stock and our noses have begun to look like W.C. Fields on a bad day.  The experts are telling us it will be a bad allergy season because the heavy rainfall has caused an abundance of blooms.  From April until June we venture out of the house at our own risk…there is so much pollen in each tree now that on a windy day it can blow for several blocks.

      The rattlesnake, playing through

My second caution of the season is the annual awakening of the rattlesnakes.  This was brought home to me last week when playing the second hole of our golf course.  There, in the middle of the fairway, we came upon a huge rattlesnake.  Usually they are resting comfortably under bushes or rocks but this guy was in the grass sunning himself, probably critiquing our golf swing.  Our partners, who were looking into the distance and not at the ground, stopped right next to the snake.  As we shouted for them to move the cart, the snake began to coil and hiss.  Never a good sign.  No one was hurt but it was a sure sign that these vipers of the desert are out and we need to be cautious.  Their appearance is good news for the local golf stores as it means that no one with any common sense wanders into the brush to look for a lost ball.  I lost two on Tuesday and as far as I’m concerned the snakes can have them.

Rattlesnakes are scary, that’s for sure.  But Spring also brings our big golf tournaments and another snake in the grass – the Sandbagger.  So between pollen, snakes and cheaters, I’m glad I have some indoor hobbies to keep me occupied.  The good news is the pollen dries up and the winter visitors with their bogus handicaps go away in June.  The bad news? Living here will be equivalent to being in a microwave oven.  You can’t have everything.

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I’VE PEAKED IN MY OWN BACK YARD

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pINNACLE pEAKBy Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Like many people who live close to a landmark, I am completely clueless about the one near me, Pinnacle Peak. Which is particularly pathetic because I’ve lived at the base of it for 15 years. It serves as a beacon of sorts, providing a touchstone to remind us of just how far away we are from home when we travel around the Valley of the Sun. So, let’s just say hypothetically that one of us is lost and the other won’t ask for directions, we just look for “the Peak” and, voila!, we know which direction is home.

Normally the most attention I pay to it is when I’m playing golf and spot some adroit rock climbers who have scaled its summit. Usually they will wave to us golfers. We always wave back, admiring their gumption – and youth. I usually three-putt those greens due to the obvious distraction. Or at least that’s my story this month.

But curiosity got the best of me last week and I decided to do some research on the Peak in my backyard. The first thing that struck me is that the Peak is almost 3200 feet high. That’s the tip, where all those crazy rock climbers look down on all us crazy golfers. That may not seem high to those of you who live in the mountains, but to those of us in the desert, this is our Mount Whitney.

The area around Pinnacle Peak was originally used by the Hohokam Indians for hunting and food gathering. Later, settlers began to use the area for ranching and mining, and finally, the whole darn place was overrun by golf courses and homes. One vestige of the mining era is that the best cheeseburger in the world can be found Greaswood Flats, an old miners shack right across from the Peak.

Hiking-Pinnacle-PeakIn 1994 the city of Scottsdale decided to make Pinnacle Peak a park and built a trail so that everyone could enjoy its beauty. The trail is 3.5 miles roundtrip and will leave you begging for an iron lung on the way up. They conveniently have provided a bench at “Grandview”which they say is so you can sit and admire the the spectacular vista. Usually all I see are my shoelaces, since my head is buried between my knees in an effort to regain regular respiration – and some dignity. The trail only climbs 500 feet from the trailhead to the top, but the older I get the steeper it becomes. I see some young people run the entire trail which I think is highly suspicious and may require some drug testing.

If gasping for air isn’t enough to entice you, you might be attracted to the beautiful plants and animals that inhabit the area. You’re likely to see bobcats, Gila monsters and Diamondbacks – and not the ones with a bat in their hands. But if you do see them you don’t want to run too far off the trail or you might get stuck in a jumping cholla plant, a vicious cactus that does actually jump out and stab you with it’s fishhook spines.

I have promised myself that I will hike the trail more regularly this spring in the fervent hope that I will get in better shape. And, seriously, there is nothing more beautiful than the cactus flowers in the spring. If nothing else, I have found a practical use for the stopping point at “Grandview” – it is the perfect place from which to throw my golf clubs off into a deep, dark crevice, never to annoy me again.