Geez. Yall act like snake sightings are rare here in the desert! :) LOL  
Gosh, I think I see a snake on every other desert hike I take!

Today I saw an interesting looking snake I dont think I have seen before. I 
saw it in the area of EvilFish's Prescott Prize Cache. It was fairly long 
and big. It was black and whitish/yellowish striped all the way down. Kinda 
cute! I was walking along the trail and it was sitting right there. I 
stopped within less than a foot of it to obvserve and it just sat there 
without a care in the world. I watched it a moment until it decided our 
conversation was getting boring and it slowly went on it's way! :)  I think 
it was a Common Kingsnake (non venomous).

Most snakes I see, when I am not particularly looking for them, are 
rattlesnakes. They are easy to identify. But if you turn over some rocks... 
there is a good chance you will find lots of non venomous snakes out in the 
desert. I think there is only one venomous, non rattler snake in arizona.. 
that is a coral snake. I cant say I have ever seen one though. They are very 
easily identified (black/yellow/orange striped). So if it doesnt have a 
rattler on it, it is likely not venomous.

I saw my first Gila Monster, after living in Arizona nearly 20 years, just 
last year. We saw it while out geocaching south of Vulture Mine. It was 
sitting just outside a hole under a rock and my friend stepped near it and 
it backed up under the rock some more. He called me back down (of course, I 
was way ahead up the mountain!) and told me what he saw. So I kinda looked 
into the hole a bit and saw it peeking out at me with it's head just inside 
the hole. My first Gila Monster sighting and probably will not be fortunate 
to find another one for a long time. :(

Scott
Team Ropingthewind