How to get back into the trail after snakeophobia rears its ugly head:
Step 1. Pick a short one so that you can make it back to the trailhead in decent time if you lose your shit.
Step 2. Pick a well-traveled area so that someone else scares the snake away and/or encounters it before you do.
Step 3. Make sure there's tasty huckleberries on the way.
Other bonuses: a couple of high school friends perched on a tree branch self-consciously bantering their way towards LUV; electric dryness and tannins in the air that reminded me of fall in Tennessee; and a middle-aged hippie biking up Skyline Boulevard with his middle-aged collie trotting alongside an open trailer-buggy that she'd no doubt jump into when she got too tired.