Reptile & Amphibian Forums

who recorded the 1st at those locations???.......who remembers lester huey's reign on juno road????....and that border patrol dispatcher from comstock who did some collecting for hollister....until he found out what the snakes were worth??????????

Not too sure, but I have always heard Adam Sweetman's name mentioned as the first recorded alterna on 277. I do remember Les Huey's ragged, smoking, loud little rice burner making laps back and forth at Bakers Crossing when I was trying to get some sleep under the trees. Hollister always seems to be involved no matter what the situations is.

Wayne H.

Yeah Wayner...Doherty once told me the story about Sweetman while we were heading home from dinner one night. Seems he got pretty lucky when his car broke down in Del Rio and while it was being serviced, he grabbed a rental and headed up 277 for a few nights. Dave said since he didn't want to put too many miles on the rental, he stuck it out there and ended up finding a few really awesome looking animals. The story could be a little different, however, you know how Davus is after a few margaritas..LOL.
Nathan

Yeah, ol' Davus!! Give him a few margaritas and then he starts rockin out to Metallica..................then you wonder, is this guy really a vet?

::)))))))))))

Wayne

A. J. Flury collect the first "blairs" 8.8 miles west of Dryden (technically and east of Sanderson snake) on June 3rd 1948.

Miller 1979 had some old 277 locality records in his "A Life history study of the Gray-banded Kingsnake" first edition printing. The first edition printing included a gob of locality listings in the back. I had long ago lost that one and the next printing did not include those localities, but the Val Verde Map in his book does have a dot above the 277/377 intersection on 277.

One of the oldest localities for 277 that I remember off the top of my head was "12 miles north of Loma Alta". Alan Kardon and I first visited that locality in 1977. All we found on 277 that trip was a suboc at Loma Alta.

I imagine if I scoured our records I could figure out to attribute that snake to.

If you are asking "who started a flood of herpers visiting those localities", the answers would be Damon S. for Sanderson and Adam S. for 277. For some strange reason live snakes in hand attrack a lot more attention than "dots on a map" lol.

Who's the border Patrol? You mean Don Duncan? He didn't collect solely for Hollister, he collected to put his kids through college! I think they eneded up getting a durn good education. Duncan and his boys were rumored to have found over 500 alterna, right up there with Chamberlain.

One of your buddies is right up there with those guys, Eric Timaeus, and he's still out there doing it. I would venture say he's seen as many wild alterna as anyone, Duncan, Hollister or chamberlain included.

has quite a few Loma Alta localities as well

...found a DOR L. alterna at Loma Alta in 1968, at least that is what he related to me before his untimely death. Ben was a dedicated scientist and teacher until 1997 when he died from cancer. I miss him a lot.

Robert Haase

One day I was visiting a well-known Juno Road collector while he was doing some work around his house and as he walked by (it was a narrow spot where I was standing at that moment) me my crotch was rubbed or bumped. It was not something I gave much thought because it could have been an accidental bumping with the hands. I put it to the back of my mind and did not worry about it.

Later that night, I had managed to totally put that incident into the back of mind as an accidental bumping. So I stopped and spoke to this person at the pull of by Bakers Crossing and in general just take a break and compare notes for the night. Well after a few minutes the bugs were becoming very attracted to my flashlight so I turned it off and we kept talking in the dark.

Then I felt a hand gently come up to my crotch in the darkness... I was stunned, I could not even speak. I turned the light back on, got in my truck and left. Never confronted this person about it.

Ever since then the whole thing has completely creeped me out, I also think that looking back I took a wise coarse of action in just leaving. If I had acted out in any way there is a good chance I would have a criminal record to show for it. I just hope that I was the only person that ever had this type of experience out there.

My gosh Lance...what a story. That's bizarre!! I can't even begin to imagine what that was like for you. Surprised you were able to keep your cool like you did....I guess that was the shock taking control.
Nathan

Lester the molester...

He's lucky you didn't beat him senseless, I would have.

Forky

alterna must not have been the only snake he was looking for...

Bob,
In 1985 I met a man from Toronto, Canada of all places on 277. I don't recall his name but he claimed to have been hunting 277 every year for nearly 10 years. Of course back then the road was extremely narrow and hardly anyone hunted it much less shined cuts. Also Earl Turner told me personally that he had collected alterna from 277 and Sanderson back in the early to mid 70's. I only hunted 277 one or 2 nights in '85 because the traffic was way to dangerous. Found 2 dor Bairds though.
Adam Sweetman definitely opened up 277 to "the masses" in 1990 with his incredible finds which he found due to car trouble he was having. 2 of the 5 he found in a couple of nights are still on my "perfect 10" list and I understand are still alive today, 15 years later! Congrats again, Adam.
A question that John Fraser asked me not to long ago was " who was the first person to start shining cuts??? When I met John Hollister in 1982 he was just starting to do that around Langtry. I think John H. had said that he started doing it because Bob Applegate had had success shining cuts. Can't help but think the Chamberlains and Duncans might of done some sort of shining also but don't know that for a fact. Anyone else know who might of started doing this??

don't know who started it, but Norman Nunley and I were armed with spotlights in 1979 & 1980, as well as Eric Timaeus, and about everyone else we saw out there during that time

Back about 1974 Ron Savage was out at Study Butte when Dennis Harter and I were there. Ron was doing a U-turn on 118 when his headlights shined an alterna up on a cut. As far as I can tell, that was the first ever taken that way. On that trip Bob Applegate, Henry Wallace, Claude Lee Box, and a few guys from California were out there and none of them had ever heard of such a thing. From that point on, to the best of my knowledge, collectors started paying attention to the cuts.

Cheers,

Terry Vandeventer

The Border patrolman was Don Duncan. He collected enough alterna with his boys to assist with their college tuition at Tech. He later bought a ranch east of the sheep sign.

Hey Steve!!

What a pleasure it was to meet up with you last month, after all of these years, on Blair's hill of all places!!! I told my son after we drove off that we used to see each other out there in the 70's, and that it had been probably 20+ years since we had met up anywhere. I hope all is going good with you.

Be safe and well. Hugh

Don Duncan did not buy the ranch east of the sheep sign (which is no longer there). He was leasing it and running stock. He worked it till he died of a brain tumor. I used to go out to see him alot prior to his death. He had a road that ran down to the Pecos and there was a very nice little camp place there. I and my son used to walk the canyon cliffs that had several pocket caves available for exploration. Numerous rock rattlesnakes. Never did but should have gotten out there at nite with a headlight looking for alterna.

Don was a good man who never was upity and always very friendly as anyone who knew him will tell you.

ECT