WTF. How the hell did they get up there?!? I am amazed you didn't get bitten.

I'm assuming that it fell from above. It was pretty cold so it was probably too lethargic to strike. Either way, It nearly scared the lunch out of me. I was on lead too... would have taken quite the whipper on top of being bitten by a freakin rattlesnake 400 feet off the ground. Lucky for my climbing partner, he had the option to take a slightly different route.

no way! I'm about to go do this route with a friend and this is not what I had in mind for getting beta on mountain project.

lol, soloists worse nightmare

@Colin my first response when I enlarged the photo and saw the snake was WTF!!! Dude is seriously lucky he didn't get biten..

So is the snake on or off?

Not buying that the snake "fell from above." It found a route to its stance on the side of the cliff. I encountered a rattlesnake on top of a pinnacle near the summit of Baboquivari in southern Arizona. Only way for humans to reach this summit was via fifth class roped climbing. Snakes go wherever the food goes; rats and mice can climb to amazing places far up the side of cliffs.

Great photo! Glad you were unscathed.

We know that blindly placed protection isn't to be trusted, now hand jams that can't be visually inspected first aren't to be trusted.

holy shit!
way to keep it together.

I'm actually far more conscientious now about just blindly jamming my hand in a crack. Kinda sucks. haha. I'm familiar with baboquivari. It's a beautiful place. Regardless of the location, climbing is dangerous... in more ways than we know!