Just a funny story that happened to me recently:

To begin, I like to go around and pick up litter in what I guess you could call a lame hobby. One of my favorite places to do so is on the Trace, where I have a route that lets me collect the most trash for my effort. On occasion, I'll hit the Trace multiple times over a few days. This usually means I get all the litter immediately off the path and lets me do what I call "a deep clean," which is where I'll get trash that's been thrown further out in the bushes or down below that rest spot.

On this particular sunny afternoon I was doing one such deep clean. I was about two tunnels down from the USM entrance, near a tree that had recently been cut. There was a bottle just barely off the path lying underneath it, so I stepped out to pluck it up with my grabber thing. Now anyone that's been out there recently knows that while the weather is turning nice, the ground is still covered in dead leaves. As I picked up the bottle, I suddenly felt something moving up my leg. I had apparently stepped on this poor snake that was chilling under the leaves. It panicked and just tried to flee up my leg. I panicked and flailed that leg in ways it wasn't meant to move while simultaneously leaping backwards off my other leg with superhuman strength. The snake landed back in the leaves and I landed on the other side of the path and we exchanged what I can only describe as dumbfounded looks at each other. A passing couple happened to witness the whole event and we shared a moment of freaking out followed by laughter at the absurdity of it all. They eventually continued on their the way, the snake disappeared, I finally picked up that bottle and that was that.

For the curious it was maybe a 2 foot rat snake. No bites. Moral of the story is don't litter folks, I hate snakes.