A Beautiful Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer)

Gopher Snake flicking its tongue. Look at the stripe that runs through its eye - the way the dark patter continues across the snake’s iris. Beautiful.

A couple of weeks ago, Laurie took one of the horses out for a ride through the Sagebrush Desert of Southwestern Colorado. I came along for the hike. It was a beautiful, cool day in late October.

After the ride, we were driving home with the horse trailer when we came across a Gopher Snake stretched out across the blacktop. The road was narrow, and there was no time to stop the truck.  We tried to straddle him with the truck and the trailer. The snake was about 3.5-4 feet long, so we weren’t sure that we’d be able to straddle him successfully.

And if he moved…well.

After we’d passed over the snake we stopped. We jumped out of the truck and ran back to the snake. The snake was unharmed - we’d been lucky, and the snake had been even more so.

The snake was not grateful, however.

He was coiled up with his head pulled back into an “S” shape, striking at us. He flattened his head so that it looked for all the world like a Rattlesnake’s head. He shook his tail as if it had a rattle on the end of it. It was a most impressive display.

He calmed down immediately after I picked him up. He would wrap a coil over one of my hands, then crawl over to my other hand. Back and forth, back and forth. His body was cool, dry, and muscular. He felt like a piece of beaded jewelry that had magically come to life.

Gopher Snake. I love the stripes that extend down through his eyes.

Gopher Snake

I took the snake off of the road and let it go in the Sagebrush. He crawled off through the brush and down into a rodent hole.

Gopher Snake as it crawls away

I know that Gopher Snakes are common, and that it’s not that strange to see them.

But still, I just can’t believe that we live in a place where we can see creatures like this.