You take off the highway and head east up the sage-filled draw between two narrow hogbacks. The ridge on your left is steep and rocky, made of white limestone. The ridge to your right is rounder, consisting of red sandstone with a smattering of pines on top.

Over the crest of the rise, the two ridges end in an open meadow. The road splits and we follow the right fork, to the eastern end of the red ridge.

I park at the bottom of the rocks, unwilling to risk the incredibly steep two-track that runs straight up the ridge.

The heelers do not get out here. They do not understand why.

I walk slowly up the two track. Partly because it is so steep, but mainly because I am watching each step carefully. The road is in the evening sun, with the rocky crest of the ridge to the right. A sagebrush draw to the left, red rocks to the right. Beyond the rocks is in shadow. The rock layers are pitched at about a 45-degree angle, gentle on the sunny side, dropping off 2-3 meters in the shade.

There are spent shotgun shells in the road and on the rocks. Some recent.

About 70 meters up I turn off the road, onto the rocks. There is a pit here, only a meter or so deep, probably less than two meters long and little more than a meter wide. Someone came up here for this red sandstone, probably for landscaping rock. Several thin layers of this rust-red stone are rippled on top, the fossils of ancient beaches. Traces of the Jurassic, here for the picking.

But I'm not here for the rocks.

I am spotted before I get to the pit. The high pitch buzz makes me twitch, even though I was expecting it.

One medium sized rattlesnake has its front end hanging out of a crack in the wall of the pit, and that is who has spotted me. It quickly slides into a larger nook, the rattle never ceasing. There is a larger rattler coiled beside a rock in a corner of the pit. That is all I see.

Except for shotgun shell casings and some empty brass.

This is the only rattlesnake den where I know the exact location. I have general ideas where four or five others are sited. This location was revealed to me when, during an antelope season, I came into these canyons to investigate numerous gunshots.

What I found was three kids from a local community blasting away at the snakes in this pit. With shotguns and a father's large caliber handgun.

Real smart, shooting down into a shallow rock pit at your feet.

But perfectly legal. Prairie rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridus) have no legal protection in this state. Unless you want to sell them or study them. Then you need a permit.

But if you try to kill any wildlife with a firearm, you need a Hunter Safety card. One of the three (the one with the handgun) did not. So I shut them down for at least that fall day. At least a half dozen dead rattlers in the pit.

Came back a week or two later, and enjoyed over a dozen live rattlesnakes, including one large female basking beside the road.

Have been back every year since. The number of snakes has steadily dwindled, and every year there are fresh shotgun shells. Only three snakes last year.

This is the only time I have considered eco-terrorism. I know the boys (actually now young men... I was hoping they would outgrow this activity) drive right up the steep two-track. I have been sorely tempted to spike that trail with timber jacks. But I haven't. And the snake population goes down. And the survivors get smaller.

I get out the GPS to get an accurate location for the pit. I catch movement to my right.

A third rattler, sunning itself outside the pit (like me), two meters to the right.

Good. At least there's three left.

My attention goes back to the GPS screen. When I'm done, I notice snake number three is gone. Silently slithered away.

Ooooops. Getting careless. Quick check the feet.

Nope, the third snake is sneaking down into the pit, disturbing a fourth rattler I hadn't seen in the bottom. As I walk past the pit I spot a fifth rattlesnake, surprisingly large, squeezed into the ledge between two flat rocks at the front of the pit.

About a meter from where my feet were. Its body is grossly flattened, hugging the contours of the bottom rock to get every BTU of solar energy from the stone. This snake and the large one in the corner turn their heads to monitor my movement, but never buzz.

Above the pit I find a younger snake, only three buttons, on the shady side of the ridge. And then an even smaller rattler, with only a button and a half. This is when they are the most beautiful. Contrasting dark colours, rather than the faded greens and browns. It slithers backwards into a cranny, its "rattle" making only a high-pitched whine.

Beside it is half a skeleton from a previous year's carnage. But we're up to seven, with some successful reproduction in the past year or two.

I head back to the truck, going down the ridgeline. Behind me I hear a light scrape, like a dry leaf rustling against concrete. Somewhere along the way I had passed over somebody, but I cannot find them.

Halfway down I spot an eighth rattlesnake, coming out of the rocky ridge, headed towards a cavity below a large rock for the night. I'm less than two meters above it, and it never knows I am there.

The shadows are getting long, the heelers are getting hot, and we still have one barrel to put up. With any luck, I'll be back here in a week or so.