Rattlers- never a problem. Other native snakes, no problems. Respect nature and give it a wide berth when one can. I went hiking with my dad once, about a decade ago, and we moved a few baby rattlers off the trail with sticks we were on and thought that we were doing good work.
My grandmother, near 100 years old and weighs almost 20 less than that. She is a bit of a legend in the town where she has moved to. Beyond believing that nobody owns nopales, she sees all cacti as a community asset, she has been known to move snakes, including rattlesnakes off of the trails she walks on in the early morning so that they don’t get squished by mountain bikers or inane hikers. She just picks them up and moves them. Sometimes she laughs at the people that ask if she’s scared. “It’s too cold in the morning. What are they going to bite into anyway, skin and bone?”- my paraphrase of her Spanglish. (She has no qualms killing things. She pick up a chicken, swing it one handed and break its neck faster than it can blink.) I ran into a parent at a kids birthday who suddenly said, “I know your grandmother. I love her!” She also doesn’t flinch when the trains come whizzing by, but that is because she is nearly deaf.
