Читать книгу 101 Hikes in Southern California. Exploring Mountains, Seashore, and Desert онлайн

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Watch carefully where you put your feet and especially your hands during the warmer months. In brushy or rocky areas where you cannot see as far, try to make your presence known. Tread with heavy footfalls, or bang a stick against rocks or bushes. Rattlesnakes will pick up the vibrations through their skin and will usually buzz (an unmistakable sound) before you get too close for comfort. Most bad encounters between rattlesnakes and hikers occur in April and May, when snakes are irritable and hungry after their long hibernation period.

Red diamond rattlesnake

Mountain Lions

Mountain-lion attacks, although statistically rare, have been increasing all over California in the past three decades. This trend may continue as the natural habitat for these carnivorous cats becomes more and more fragmented by suburban and rural development. Several attacks and many more incidents of threatening behavior by mountain lions toward humans have taken place in urban-edge park and national-forest lands, such as those covered in this book.