January 2021. Morris Township, Pennsylvania. We’re about a mile and a half into a 2.5-mile descent, five of us, including my kids. Caiden had a trekking pole and was using it the way 11-year-olds do, which is to say loosely. He swung it wide on a step down and it stopped about eight inches from a coiled timber rattlesnake sitting in a pile of dead leaves. The snake was well within striking distance. It had been there the whole time. We just hadn’t seen it. Nobody got hurt. I talked e