What is the most stuck you have ever been in mud or quicksand and how long did it take for you to get unstuck.

[Theo]

This is all quite interesting because I’ve actually had similar thought experiments before, thinking that: yes, it’s true that if you just step into deep mud/quicksand and don’t move, maybe it’s impossible to go under. But given the simple fact that we see all these videos of people working themselves under, it can’t be “completely impossible.” And I’ve also thought that if the mud will let you sink down, but doesn’t let you back up, and it’s deep enough to go under in, than that would be a problem. So Sinkman’s story just confirmed those assumptions.

As for me, my experiences pale in comparison to Sinkman’s story, as I haven’t sank much deeper then the tops of my thighs in the few spots I’ve explored around here. In one such spot, my boots did get very stuck. If I sat there and kept working at it for a while, I probably could’ve got them out, but not wanting to waist time, I decided just to pull my feet out and dig them by hand.

But the most stuck I’ve ever been, was actually in a deep flower pot earlier this year. I’d collected some mud from a spot where it was ponding in my gravel driveway after a torrential rain thinking how cool it looked, and put it this big, maybe 2.5 feet deep plastic flower pot I had. It was kind of like quarry clay: grey, creamy, but also a little sandy. The first time I messed around in it, I’d added a little (too much) water, thinking it was too thick. It was definitely hard to get out of with my boots on, but manageable, and as usual I thought, “dang, if only it was a few feet deeper!” After that, I let it sit to thicken up for a few days, which allowed the sand to settle to the bottom. Then, after sinking in a foot or so, it was almost a hard stop. But with a little “leg work,” I was able to get the boots almost all the way down. And there, they were stuck... really stuck. It took five or ten minutes just to work one up a few inches, and again, maybe I could’ve gotten it out all the way. But it was during one of our heat waves, so I thought, “screw it,” and just pulled my feet out of the boots. The one boot I got up a little took about ten minutes of pulling by hand to extract, but after working on the other for another ten or more, it wasn’t budging. By then, I was about to expire in the heat, so I elected to come back later when it was cooler, and dig it out. And even at that, it still took fifteen or twenty minutes and scooping half the mud out to finally get it free. Yeah... probably for the best it was only a couple of feet deep. For comparison, I also tried it in my bare feet, which was significantly easier than with boots.