Copperheads and Tent Platforms

For a couple of years I’ve been thinking about constructing a tent platform in the woods behind my house, the main reason behind this thinking is a creature that slithers across the ground, Agkistrodon contortrix contortrix, aka Southern Copperhead.

Southern Copperheads reach an average adult length of 24 to 26 inches although one was found on my property measuring 42 inches and more than a few measuring 30 inches plus. Coppers are a pale brown to light tan, often with a pinkish tint and patterned with darker hour glass shaped bands allowing them to blend with ground cover like leaves and pine needles. Coppers have heat-sensing “pits” located between the eyes and nostrils making them part of the pit viper family and their eyes have elliptical or cat-like pupils. Their heads are copper colored hence their name Copperhead.

These two were under a rock at the edge of my driveway about 50-feet from the garage door, the lighter one had already shed its skin and the darker one was getting ready to shed. Both were close to 30 inches in length. A few minutes later a third Copper was found about 10 feet to the right of these two. Yes they are plentiful around here.

In 2012 I found 13 Coppers in my yard, driveway and at the edge of my woods. One morning when taking down the hammock that I had just slept in I spotted a Copper coiled in the ready to strike position at the base of the tree where I was retrieving my hammock strap. During warmer months I don’t even think about camping in a tent or tarp in the woods behind my house, the risk of getting bit between backdoor and tent/tarp is too high, not to mention getting up during the night when nature calls.

So for the past couple of years I’ve been collecting scrap material left behind at construction sites, 6”x6” and 4”x4” pressure treated posts, concrete landscape blocks salvaged from old garden projects, my old mailbox post that was killed by a moving vehicle last summer (the mailbox didn’t survive) and anything else that I thought might be of use for a platform.

Last week I started the construction of the platform, I wanted it to be large enough to easily pitch a DuoMid and yet not so big that it looked like a landing pad for UFO’s, I settled for a 10’x8’ deck.

Corner posts and blocks are recycled material along with the old mailbox post turned stove testing shelf also covered with pea gravel and cedar strips leftover from past landscape projects.

I’m enjoying sleeping out in the back woods on the platform and without worrying about the Coppers…oh I wear knee-high boots between the backdoor and the platform.

Project cost: new decking and lumber, deck screws, nails and eye hooks less than $200. One mashed thumb, sweat and a boatload of pride when finished with this DIY project…PRICELESS!

During the construction phase I discovered this Copper at the edge of the path leading from my house to the platform. It is Copper #1 for 2013.