Well, I think it’s that time again. Time for a new National Park-related list. I previously made lists of my Top 10 Favorite National Parks and Top 10 Short and Long National Park hikes. I’ve also shared my Bucket List and a list of places I’ve visited that I think should be on everyone’s Bucket List. This time, I decided to go with a list of my Top 10 Wildlife Encounters. They all occurred in National Parks; unsurprisingly most of them were in Glacier and Yellowstone. Almost all of these were up close and personal interactions, while a couple could be better classified as “wildlife sightings” from afar. I decided I would simply use a photo of the park of the incident as my Featured Image, so that I don’t give away the type of wildlife. Hope you enjoy my list.
10. The massive bull elk in Mather Campground
9. The rattlesnake on the way up Half Dome
Location: Near Little Yosemite Valley on the trail up to Half Dome.
Animal: Rattlesnake.
Rarity (the first of a few totally subjective 1-10 scales I am using): 6?? – I really have no idea. I have a feeling rattlesnakes probably aren’t often seen on the way up Half Dome, though..
Wow Factor: 5 – I’m not a big fan of snakes, but at the point I saw the snake my mind was totally focused on the mission at hand, and that was summiting Half Dome.
Danger: 7 – The snake sounded its distinct and unique alarm to notify us to stay back. If we accidentally snuck up on it I’m sure it could have bitten us. That would have been painful and at the very least ended our quest for Half Dome.
Fear Factor: 5 – Once I saw that it was simply curled up in the shade and wasn’t moving toward us I wasn’t worried. However, I was initially afraid when I heard the rattle.
Description: I was in the middle of a 37-day road trip out west with my friend Joe. His girlfriend, Kate, met up with us in Yosemite National Park for five days. The three of us made the difficult hike up to the summit of Half Dome together. That hike was the apex of our entire trip. About half way up the trail to the large bald summit of Half Dome we had a strange and temporarily frightening wildlife encounter.
Unsurprisingly, I heard the rattlesnake before I saw it. As advertised, rattlesnakes sound just like a baby shaking a rattle. I instinctively jumped upon hearing the sound. Despite never seeing or hearing a rattlesnake before, I immediately knew what that sound meant in the wild. I looked around and found the large snaked coiled up a few feet away. A few other hikers stopped, too, and watched the snake. It just stayed where it was, curled up in the shade of a tree. It didn’t appear especially concerned with us hikers, but it also made it known that we shouldn’t get too close to it. We cautiously walked slowly around it and continued up the trail.
You can read all about my epic hike up Half Dome. There are three parts: The Ascent, The Cables and Summit, and The Descent.
The Adventures of a Day Hiker 
It’s never fun to sneak up on a snake. Last summer I wrote a post about sneaking up on a snake a Perrot State Park in Wisconsin. We don’t have a lot of snakes in this part of the country, but we do have rattlesnakes. We ran into a fox snake along the trailside and I jumped and sidestepped off the trail screaming snaaakkkee!!!!
I’ll have to keep my eyes open when I eventually get out to Yosemite. Any advice for visiting?
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I have twice run into rattlesnakes. The first time I saw a rattlesnake was in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne at Yosemite, and we had a wide berth to go around it. The second time was hiking near Santa Clarita in southern California. The trail was narrow and overgrown on both sides, there was no good way around the snake, and the snake seemed to have no intention of moving away from the trail. Maybe 20 minutes later we turned around, as I was pretty much freaking out every time I looked at it. I don’t like snakes.
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I will get scared as they have venom, right?
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Yeah I think so.
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