I'm reposting this for our "Story Board". I searched and found it in the archives.
One night in June, early 90's, Tremper and I were hammering 277 for 9 days straight. It was the fourth night of the trip when we found the first alterna, a nice male Black-headed Blairs.
The next night was rather dull, and we cruised well into the wee hours of the morning. I was headed south approaching the 32 mile Picnic area at 4:20 am and spot-lighting out the left. I glanced over at Tremper in the passenger seat - he was glassy eyed, head nodding, in a state of semi-consciousness. I got a chuckle out of that.
Not a minute later I see "one" big orange blotch on the cut about a foot off the ground. The rest of the snake was obscured by some Ivy growing on the cut. From what I could see it was nice, real nice. I slammed it in park and got the snake, Tremper woke up, and we had the usual celebration in the middle of the road.
While we were celebrating another Hunter approaches from the north. It was Blody riding with the Swedes, Matts and Janni. They were all but dead, until they got a look at that neon orange snake we just pulled off the cut. You could see the transformation instantly - AWAKE! haha.
What happened next was a fluke. I told them "They are moving - go shine that cut over there!" At that I pointed to the low crummy cut 100 yards ahead on the west side of the road. It was at the apex of the curve and across from the big wrap-around Picnic area cut. Off they go straight for that cut.
Tremper and I put the snake away and when we look back up, we see Blody and the Swedes have pulled over - everyone out of the car, car doors wide open, and Blody is on his belly at the base of the cut digging under a large boulder.
Blody claims to have seen a huge Blairs crawl under the rock. The Swedes didn't see it and think Blody is Hallucinating - they are disgusted. Blody is insistent. Tremper and I don't know what to think. Maybe he did see it, maybe he didn't?
They never found it, and ended up going in sometime after the sun came up.
The next evening we ate at the Stomach Blockade, and when we came outside from from eating I told Tremper "TREMP! It's 10 degrees cooler right now than it was this time yesterday. We need to HAUL ASS up there NOW". We booked it on up 277 and he dropped me off on the big wrap around cut just south of the picnic area. It was barely dark. I started on the south end and walked north towards the picnic area. I was working slow, a couple steps at a time and shining up and down the cut. After about 15 minutes of this I stopped to light a cigarette. As I was lighting it I looked down at my feet and saw "Killer" stretched out straight as an arrow at the base of the cut as if he had come across the road and was fixin to climb up the cut I was working. I turned around and looked across the highway, and I was standing directly across from the Boulder where Blody was digging on his belly. It was the same snake he had seen about 14 hours earlier.
If only you could have seen his face when I showed it to him. I kept it a while then eventually gave it to Blody.
