Snake Road in Illinois' Shawnee National Forest is only known road in U.S. to close for reptile migration – CBS News

Snake Road in Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest is only known road in U.S. to close for reptile migration  CBS News

It's officially Forest Service Road 345 but it's far better known as Snake Road, an incredibly rare stretch Illinois' Shawnee National Forest that may be the only street in the U.S. to close for no-legged friends. Indiana Jones would shudder, but for herpetologist Scott Ballard, a slither doesn't produce a sliver of fear. "This is the best place to come and get rid of all your concerns and negative energy," he said. Snake Road is a rather straight road. It's the reptiles that provide the twists and turns. Why did the snake cross the road? To get to the other side – no joke. "This road is going in between their summer foraging areas in the swamp, and their fall hibernation areas in the bluffs," Ballard explained.

"And they have to cross this road to get from one to the other." So every spring and every fall, Snake Road closes to cars. "That protects animals from being incidentally killed by vehicles running over them," explained U.S. Forest Service Officer Anderson Harris. "It's the only road in the U.S., to my knowledge, that we close for that migrations of the amphibians and reptiles." As snakes migrate across the road, people migrate to it. "People from around the world come here," said Harris. For so-called "herpers" – snake enthusiasts, that is –