Not just any mud but clay mud that sticks to everything. As such, we now have shoe scrapers scattered about and this is what they look like on a good day (pic 1).
We have also seen signs of reptilian life (pic 2)–the kind of reptiles we wish to avoid confronting face to face.
Outside of rattlesnakes which do exist up here in the Diablo Range, we expect to encounter Gopher Snakes. The two are going to be hard to tell apart and when we find either, I’m sure there will be a jump, an exclamation, heart-thumping, few steps far away, and then if the thing is still in the line of sight, we will investigate if it’s the harmless variety or something with which we don’t want to tangle.
