Seeing as how this might be the “snake-iest” (and buggiest) summer in at least a decade (based on what I’ve seen and the comments of others), here’s a reminder for you: Keep your eyes on the ground!

This part of Tennessee is home to only two poisonous snakes, and neither of them (copperhead and timber rattler) are exactly deadly, but their bites can still cause nasty illness and a whole lotta hurt.

On a hiking trip to Angel Falls on the Big South Fork one evening earlier this week, I was reminded of the importance of keeping your eye on the ground in front of you. In my 30 years, I’ve never been snake-bitten, but I came closer than ever before on this particular hike.

Leatherwood is one of the most snake-infested areas of the park, for reasons unknown (to me, at least). Seldom have I hiked to Angel Falls without coming across poisonous snakes. On this particular trip, I saw five of the old copper-head look-alike, the copper-bellied water snake (at least I assume they were water snakes; they could’ve been copperheads taking baths in the river, but I didn’t intend to get close enough to find out).

I was busy running my mouth and not looking at the trail when I heard the familiar rat-a-tat-tat of a rattlesnake. I froze, thinking it was a rattlesnake a few steps from me (my directional hearing isn’t anything to write home about). At the same time I was stopping, I realized that it wasn’t a rattlesnake a ways ahead of me, but a copperhead directly beneath me. The rat-a-tat-tat was the copperhead’s tail slapping the leaves on the ground (copperheads tend to shake their tails in warning just before they strike, similar to a rattlesnake). At the same time I was realizing this, I saw him — a nice-sized specimen — right beside my foot. He was drawing back his head to strike.

All of that happened in less than a second, of course. But it seemed to move in slow-motion. When I started moving, though, there was nothing slow about it. I dived out of the way, probably just in time to avoid a painful two-mile walk back to the truck and a trip to the hospital.

I’m still amazed that I wasn’t bitten. Given the aggressiveness* of copperheads, it’s really a miracle. Like anyone who spends much time in the woods, I’ve had my share of close encounters with snakes of the biting variety over the years, but usually I’ve startled them just as much as they’ve startled me. This one was lying in wait, and by all rights I should’ve been bitten. But if I’d been watching where I was going, I would’ve easily seen him before I got into striking distance of him. So, keep yer eye to the ground.

*It is often written that copperheads are “famously non-aggressive.” I don’t know if I agree with that. To be sure, they aren’t overly aggressive, as pit vipers go, but they’re certainly more aggressive than the timber rattler. If you’ve ever messed around with them (don’t try this at home), you know that it’s fairly easily to get a copperhead to strike at a backpack, walking stick, etc., while timber rattlers are much less likely to be goaded into striking (young copperheads are even more likely to strike than mature, older copperheads, which might explain why this one didn’t strike).

The more aggressive nature of copperheads is unassumed by a lot of people, simply because the timber rattler has the reputation of being the more dangerous snake. This is probably for a few reasons: One, with its larger size, larger head, and rattles, a rattler can be more intimidating; rattlers have a much larger place in American folk-lore than copperheads; and their venom is more potent. But neither are overly dangerous. Copperheads generally don’t kill when they bite (I’ve read that hospitals don’t routinely give anti-venom to snake-bite patients who have been bitten by copperheads). And there haven’t been an especially large number of fatalities from timber rattler bites since the 19th Century. Even before the days of modern medicine, folks bitten by timber rattlers were more likely to recover than to die.

So, compare our snakes around here to, say, a diamondback rattler, and they’re hardly as dangerous. But I don’t think anyone wants to be bitten by one.