I'd freak over a large snake, myself. Friends were hiking one spring and a large rattler was stretched across the path, sunning itself. Probably fresh from hibernation. They finally threw rocks at it until it moved on.

I would have turned around, gone the other way, and "seen" snakes stirring all around me the entire way. The friends said it was six miles back, and two miles forward, and they didn't want to backtrack.

Not me. I'd have made that six miles in record speed and I wouldn't have heaved rocks at the snake! Once it moved off the path, I asked, how did you know it wasn't just in the weeds, coiled?

They shrugged.

Gah!

My husband says if it had a short stubby tail, thick body, triangular head, it was probably a water moccasin. But there are LOTS of different snakes -- I once had a herpetologist tell me that most snakes people think are moccasins aren't. Wikipedia supports that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottonmouth

I am such a freak about snakes that if I'm flipping through a magazine and suddenly hit a picture of a coiled snake, or especially one with it's fangs exposed -- oh heck, I don't really have to see that much detail -- I will shriek and toss the magazine on the floor. It's instinctual -- I wish I could stop it. If I know there are pics of snakes I can steel myself for it, but it's the surprise that kills me.

I know they're important to the ecosystem. I don't want them all dead. I just don't want to look at them.

And I would prefer to never encounter one. Ever.