Wading a Desert River in the Magic of June and Nearly Bitten by a Rattlesnake

For the past twenty years or so, I have participated in a coordinated  volunteer project aimed at monitoring the presence of water along the length of the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona. Organized by The Nature Conservancy, this project provides important data to scientists, land managers, and many others on the health of the river system during the hottest and driest month of the year. The data is collected the old-fashioned way – gathered by teams who experience the river in the best and most intimate manner possible, by walking and wading. Every June, I collect a portion of this data along a rare, perennially-flowing reach of the San Pedro located in the river’s middle valley, often accompanied by friends and neighbors. This year, two wonderful friends who also happen to be great neighbors assisted me in this worthwhile and delightful task.

Since June always brings oven-like temperatures, we began walking around 5:30am along a waterless stretch of the riverbed. Almost immediately, we discovered fresh tracks of an adult black bear and a cougar, etched in dry sand. One and a half miles in, the magic of water appeared. From that point on, the river flowed steadily. Because the brush is often nearly impenetrable along portions of the riverbanks, we waded, a much easier way to travel as long as one can avoid hidden lenses of quicksand. More mammal signs and tracks appeared; Coue’s whitetail deer, mule deer, javelina, coyote, bobcat, raccoon, coati, skunks, cottontail rabbits, mice and rock squirrels. Familiar bird songs spilled from the forest; summer tanagers and kingbirds, ash-throated flycatchers and song sparrows, southwestern willow flycatchers and black phoebes, grey hawks, tyrannulets, northern cardinals, Lucy’s and yellow warblers, and more.

Wading this desert river in the heat of June is magical. The cottonwood-willow forest stands tall and green, casting shade and coolness enabled by millions of fluttering leaves. The forest’s understory is verdant with lush growth. Eight-foot tall burr reed (genus Scirpus) plants crowd the riverbanks. Aquatic patches of speedwell (genus Veronica) glitter with multitudes of blue-purple blossoms. Tall willows form a vivid green arch overhanging the river. Birds sing from the depths of the forest, many butterflies, bees, and wasps drink from water’s edge, and scores of lowland leopard frogs leap at one’s every step. Below the surface, schools of long-finned dace are darting like shafts of animated light through the clear water. The continued presence of native frogs and fish are strong, positive indicators of the health of this aquatic ecosystem.

We waded for a couple of miles, feeling the warm, shallow waters of the river filling our shoes, until the waterway started to broaden and slowly deepen. I suspected a beaver dam was ahead. We climbed up on shore, then began to weave our way through a dense tangle of tamarisk and seep willow. Before long, we could see the beaver pond clearly, the water deeper and deeper, then the dam, plugging the river with a meter-tall, thirty-foot span of branches, twigs, tree limbs, rocks, and mud. I was elated to see that this reach of the river had beaver activity once again. The ecological and hydrologic benefits of beavers to this river – and many other waterways – are legion. I devoted an essay to this important topic in my book, The Life of the San Pedro River.

       My companions and I slithered down the steep riverbank to begin wading the final stretch below the dam. We had taken just a few steps when one of my friends suddenly threw his arm around me and pulled me out of harm’s way. A 3-foot western diamondback rattlesnake, coiled too close for comfort along the edge of the river channel, erupted in a frenzy of rattling. The forward third of the reptile’s body was off the ground and formed into an s-curve as the snake’s glistening black tongue waved slowly, curled backwards over its snout. Fully cocked, primed, and quite willing to strike. My fresh shoe print was about 14 inches from the rattlesnake. Had I not been yanked so suddenly by my alert friend, this snake would have probably tagged me. I have never come so close, despite encountering hundreds of diamondbacks here over the course of the last two decades. This experience underscores a crucial rule that I try to teach to everyone that I take into the wilds here – you should watch where every footstep is headed during the warmer months in southern Arizona! Sometimes, that is easier said than done.