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During June of 2002 I took my 2 year old with me to hunt for rubber boas in American Fork canyon alongside Mount Timpanogas.  I wasn't overly confident that we'd be successful but I had caught a rubber boa a few years earlier near Vivian Park in Provo canyon during a family picnic.  So I knew that there had to be some in the area.

We started our hike near a lake where we poked around the banks to see what we could find.  We found lots of fun things there - like rocks to throw in the lake - but nothing of the reptilian kind.  So we hiked to the far end of the lake and started going up a river towards a camping area.  A road runs nearby and when we got to the road and went across we found this nice clearing that had tall grass and big stones lying in it.  I had read somewhere that rubber boas were believed to favor open areas like this up in the mountains so that there is enough sun poking through for them to bask during the daytime.  That was enough motivation for me.  We started flipping rocks.

Bryce pausing a moment from the ever-enthralling game of let's-throw-rocks-in-the-water  :)

Obviously from the pictures, we were lucky.  After flipping 3 or 4 rocks we found this little boa curled up underneath.  My son, Bryce, was intrigued.  He has heard his brother Travis talk about capturing snakes and now he was proud to have caught his first one.  It's interesting to find such a neat creature in such a high location.  I have read that baby rubber boas are born in the fall with enough food stores - from the egg yolk - that they probably go their first winter without eating.  This one was probably looking around for his first meal.  We took him home and kept him for two months in our cool basement where I offered him pinky mice a number of times, but he never ate one.  When August came and he still hadn't eaten I began to worry that he wouldn't survive the winter so I took him back and put him next to the same rock where we found him.