Awesome! Very nice, Mike. I love that corn snake and mole kingsnake. And as always, your photography is spectacular. Especially that copperhead shot. That oughta be in a field guide. I'm driving from the Smokies to Wilmington in late June. If you know of any places that you could point me to (by email of course), I would definitely love to hear them. Or if you know of anyone that I could contact, let me know. I'm hoping to have a great two week herping adventure. Once again, awesome pictures, and thanks for posting. Definitely worth the wait.

It's a good question. My experience has been that temperatures matter more in the spring for when they finally stop basking outside their dens and move to the flats than they matter in the fall. It seems to me that they migrate in the fall by some sense related to time of year (length of day or something) than the temps per se. The main exception being that if they get really crappy weather for a day or two they might seek temporary shelter in a log or hole or under a rock and thus be slowed a little. It has been very warm here, but my thought is some of the snakes will still be moving next weekend. But October 8th might be the ideal weekend. I don't have a choice because I am working around others schedules so I'm going next weekend. But if I had a choice I might wait a weekend. Then again I'd probably check the extended forecast for Carbondale on Wednesday or Thursday. If it looks like its going to be highs in the 60's and partly cloudy on the weekend I'd go. If it looks like its going to be highs in the 80's (or 50's) I'd stay home and wait a weekend. 70's flip a coin.

Excellent snakes!!! I found a timber similar to that one squashed on the highway in Gallatin county on Saturday morning. That was so sad. I really wanted to turn up a red milk like yours - but no luck. Damn, I wish I wouldn't have wasted so much time on Saturday, I am so jealous of those of you who found horridus. Matt --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snake Road is comparable in the spring and has fewer people then. The difference from my experience is that the fall is more consistent and the spring can be more extreme in successes and failures. If its bad weather in the fall you still see snakes because they have to get to their dens and they ain't stopping for rain or cold. In the spring if the weather is bad the snakes are mostly still near their dens and will tuck in and wait it out. On the flip side if it is 70 degrees and sunny in the early spring the bluffs are a bonanza of basking snakes. My best day ever there was a day in March of 04 when I saw 57 snakes including 3 timbers and 30 or so cottonmouths. Ryan was also there that day and saw 74 snakes.