Over the Memorial Day weekend my family and I spent a few days site seeing in Ketchum and Sun Valley, and on the final afternoon before having to make the drive back to Twin Falls, I came within a couple feet of something that terrifies the hell out of me still to this day. 

Our Memorial Day weekend included a visit to the Ernest Hemingway Memorial Trail, as well as his final resting place at the Ketchum Cemetery. We ate at great area restaurants such as the Warfield, and got in some pool time at our hotel at the base of Bald Mountain. All in all, the trip was fantastic. On the final day (Memorial Day), we decided we wanted to spend a couple of hours scouting out a spot on the river to have lunch, before driving the final 70 miles or so home.

We stopped near Hop Porter Park, in Hailey, and grabbed a river bank spot to set up camp. The area is beautiful, and is shallow enough to float in the river water, has an incredible bridge nearby and plenty of cool spots to enjoy time away from the masses.

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Greg Jannetta
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After about an hour there, I was getting ready to grab a beer from the cooler when I noticed some movement in the brush at the base of a tree. "Snake!," I shouted, as my five-year-old son was standing just a few feet from it. I couldn't tell if it was a potentially harmful species, or one that we didn't need to fear.

My sister-in-law's 14-year-old son identified it immediately as a Bull Snake, which are apparently non-venomous, but still quite large. It was the first snake my son saw in the wild, so naturally, he was fascinated. It became the highlight of the entire trip for some, but not me.

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Bull Snake; Hailey, ID Photo: Greg Jannetta
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Ernest Hemingway Tour, Sun Valley ID

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