Safety of sleeping on the ground with no critter protection

[Marko Botsaris]

I remember reading somewhere about the "hazard" of mice coming in the night to search your beard for leftover food particles. For some reason I am thinking is was in Ray Jardine's book, but I'm not sure. The one thing worse than them scampering over you, I'm thinking, is hanging out and making themselves at home.

The analogous scenario for a grizzly is not, I would assume, pretty. LOL

[TKB 1979]

Sorry for opening up an old thread, but this topic has come up for me in Az & I actually contacted a herpetologist for advice, which was, "Don't worry about it."

I ran into 5 diamondbacks on Second Water Trail in the Superstitions over a weekend. It was Fall (Fall & Spring in Az are prime rattlesnake season, I've learned). The herpetologist agreed this was unusually high.

In an attempt to comfort with statistics, he claimed that in that area I most likely came within 50 yards of hundreds of rattlesnakes without even realizing it. Also, that I was not bitten was evidence of the success of the rattle warning system.

My personal problem with this warning system is that it is used as plan B. Plan A is to be perfectly still and perfectly camouflaged. Plan B, therefore, does not take effect until well within striking distance. In my case, within inches of striking distance. The cool part is freezing at the sound of the rattle, only to be unable to locate the thing visually to know which direction constitutes "stepping away." And then convincing myself with statistics that, rationally, I should be able to fully enjoy the rest of my hike.

I will not sleep without a tent in the desert, and this is only due to snakes. I've been stung by scorpions more times than I can count, and if that were the extent of my concern, I'd sleep without a tent in a second.

Others on the trail have advised, "But they don't *want* to bite you! They're prey! They're more scared of you than you are of them! They're not aggressive, but *defensive*!" Good for them, I say. I'll take it all into consideration. From the inside of my tent.

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[Marko Botsaris]

Since this is somewhat similar my area of expertise at the moment (designing magnetic sensor nets to do exactly this, except to detect and track hidden weapons), and apparently given my past history I am always on the lookout for products that will not sell to design, this sounds pretty cool. To implement "snake radar" you will need at least two mics, so two or more iphones communicating wirelessly. It will work even better with 4! But you are correct that the signal processing can be done to separate out snakes from other forms of noise. Hopefully even the species of snake if not their intentions, hostile or friendly, with a little work.

All we need is a government grant and we are good to go. Especially if we can convince them that some snakes may in fact be terrorists. With a government contract we would not have to worry about either product viability or liability.

[Brian Johns]

Not sure about your folks, but mine would have (I assume) never let me sleep outside alone on the ground by the mocassin and copperhead infested creeks and ponds in East Georgia where I grew up. We camped out alone ages 10-18 (and later as adults), but I never saw, heard, or felt a single snake near my or anyone else's bedroll at night. Rats, opossum, all the rest, they never bothered us either. I think humans scare most creatures even in their sleep. All that said, I'd be careful of spiders and scorpions in the desert or in leafy duff. All these threads about sleeping not surrounded by a net. I'm glad I got used to it young, it's never occurred to me that cowboy camping (the cheapest and best camping in fair weather) could be anything but fun. I suspect many/most go their whole lives without incident.

Then again, there's that story in Trail Grooves about Salamander migration at night (look it up), I don't think I would have enjoyed that laying on only a polycro groundsheet, though I know it would safer than any urban camping ever done.

[HkNewman]

When I was a kid in the desert southwest, the Y would have us sleep in bedrolls for desert camping with the corners of sheets and blankets pinned. If snakes were a problem, doubt they would have let us do it. Desert sandstorms were another issue though!

[Bob Shaver]

If you encircle your bedroll with a braided rope, rattlesnakes won't cross the rope. This principle is confirmed in the movie "Tru Grit", by Sheriff Rooster Cogburn. Look it up, and you will find no people who were surrounded by a braided rope have ever died of snakebite. That is a fact.

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[Bob Shaver]

this is well known science, not some kind of psuedo science or folk remedy. Its based on the study of snake psychology that big snakes eat little snakes, so all snakes are afraid of a snake that is bigger than them, and a rope looks to them like one very long snake, and since its braided, they have no idea what kind of snake it is, so they turn tale and skedaddle when they see a snake that is 20' long. A friend of my cousin said that, and he totally knew his stuff.

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[Bob Shaver]

that snake was raised in captivity, so its behavior has no relation to wild snake behavior.

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[Bob Gross]

Many years ago when I was in military training in Louisiana, we would be on training maneuvers in the woods in snake country. Since it was too warm and humid to use sleeping bags, we would sleep on our ponchos on the flat ground. We would spray insect repellent on the ground just outside the poncho, and that was intended to repell the snakes as well. It seemed to work, although we will never know…

–B.G.–

[Valerie E]

Roger,
As a 10-year Arizonan who has been "buzzed" by rattlesnakes WAY more times than my little heart can take, I think the rope thing is an old wive's tale. Rattlesnakes can, and will, wind their way up tree branches during spring bird egg season (imagine how freaky it feels to have one rattling at you from the branches of an oak tree!), and I see no reason why they would hesitate to cross a rope on the ground. I've seen them cross wires on the ground…

They are pit vipers; the pits on their faces sense heat. Unless they're scared and angry, you can put something without heat (like a broom) in front of them, and they don't strike at it (they usually just move away from it). Again, unless they feel threatened or angry, they won't strike at something huge, like a human, because they know they can't eat it, and it'll use up their venom supply with no food reward.

[Franco Darioli]

According to this site :
http://www.austinreptileservice.net/snakemyths.html :
Snakes crawl around on the ground all day, they crawl through cacti and over rocks. A simple rope is not going to faze them.

As for the horse hair bit, snakes do bite horses* so not sure why that would work.
*Here in Australia anyway…

[Bob Bankhead]

All these old wives' tales of methods of warding off crawling things reminds me of the joke about the man who was seen standing on the corner, snapping his fingers.

When asked why he did it, he replied "It keeps the elephants away.".

When told there were no elephants in this country, he replied, "Works good, don't it?".

Just because you haven't been bothered by crawling things does not mean your method of protection works; you may simply have not encountered your target pest.

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[Nick Gatel]

I've been sleeping on the ground without a shelter for close to 50 years. Nothing bad has happened yet.

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