Last Friday, hiking along the Buckhorn Trail in Pisgah Forest, our hiking group came upon two rather healthy male rattlesnakes in the middle of the trail. We knew to look for them because three other hikers had come from that direction, concluded that the snakes were not going to move, and decided to take the long way around to Avery Creek Road. We ventured on ahead anyway, on the assumption that the snakes had moved on by then. They had not. In fact, these two male snakes were not merely basking in the warmth of the sun, they were engaged in a dominance dance—a challenge to see which one of them would claim territorial rights and the attention of the female snake that went along with the territory.

We watched as the snakes writhed around one another; reared up to half of their body length to intimidate the other; went head-to-head, neck-to-neck until they both flopped back to the ground and then started the dominance dance over again. We guessed that they had been at this routine for at least 45 minutes (based on when we saw the other hikers) and they showed no signs of quitting anytime soon. After another few minutes, however, they disengaged and moved off to the side of the trail where the winner lay in the bushes while the loser slinked off to try his luck elsewhere. We kept close tabs on the snake that remained (after all it was his territory now) while making our escape through the undergrowth on the opposite side of the trail. It was an amazing, fascinating display of life in the universe of snakes.

I have been thinking a lot about this encounter and it seems to me that there are a couple of life lessons to be learned from my slithering acquaintances. First, taking a determined stand is sometimes the right thing to do. One might argue that this reptilian bravado was unnecessary—after all, there was plenty of forest around, they really did not have to fight over this specific patch of land. But apparently these guys didn’t see it that way. For them it was a matter of importance, perhaps even a matter of integrity. Unless they wanted to slink their life away, always avoiding confrontation, taking only the unchallenged path, then staking a claim to what they perceived as essential was the honorable thing to do. True, one of them had to come up short, but honor, rightness, integrity, has less to do with guaranteed outcomes than it does with demonstrating one’s willingness to take a firm stand on matters that matter. In this sense, both rattlers are to be commended for caring enough to engage the other.

And that brings me to the second life lesson—respectful disagreement. Both snakes thought that they were, by rights, king of this particular domain. Both were willing to stand their ground. Both wanted to prove their superiority, especially to the female snake waiting patiently nearby for her knight in scaley armor to collect his reward. Yet, both snakes abided by a rattlesnake code of honor. Either one could have bitten the other, poisoned his opponent, utterly destroyed the “enemy”, used his advantage to debase and humiliate the other—but that’s not what happened. They wrestled, they writhed, they sought to intimidate, they maintained their positions, but when all was hissed and done each left with his snake-ness intact.

I am grateful to have seen this dominance dance—it was a once in a lifetime experience. But I am equally grateful to be reminded that there are times when taking a stand is the honorable thing to do, and that one can do so honorably.

David Yeager,

Sr. Warden