My Wednesday, August 27'th photos, concluded (Part 6):
The rest of the pix of my rejuvenated patch of sucking doughy goo:
2014 08 27 1Z Crescent.JPG
2014 08 27 1ZA Crescent.JPG
2014 08 27 1ZB Crescent.JPG
After that, I cleaned up, had lunch, warmed up, and made my first video of 2014. But, I made the error of placing the stick that the camera/gorillapod was mounted on, into a weed mat on the southeast side that was a bit too springy/bouncy. I had my sinking spot properly centered/framed, clicked the record button, and as soon as I stepped away, the mat sprung up where I was standing, causing the stick and camera to tilt slightly downward, resulting in the camera being aimed slightly lower.
To make things worse, when I jumped in, I wound up landing not quite as far out as I should have, making me being even further off center yet.
But, I was still mostly in the picture on the very top, so all was not lost.
If I had known that it was going to happen, I would have set it up in a more stable spot, but I wanted to try and have it in a spot where I could try setting up a margarine container as a wind break to prevent it from spoiling the sound, and the camera had to be where the wind was behind it. That video captured my first submergence of the season
, and once again, exiting the bog made the inside of my left knee hurt worse again.
I cleaned up, dried off, and warmed up. Then, I returned to have one last sink, a horizontal struggle, relaxing in between struggles, loving the periodic swamp farts the mire would expel, before struggling some more, until the mire closed over most of me except for my head, shoulders, and upper back, and rose up to smother my mouth and nose as I had my third and final release. Working myself out of the doughy batterlike mire once again made the inside of my left knee hurt worse.
I cleaned up, got dressed and called it a day. I had to return the breathing tube to its hiding place, unused this time.
I had lots of leg cramps during my sinking, especially my calves, which made me worry about excessive stress on the tendons in my knees. When I headed back, I had to tackle some hills on the plateau before I made it to the main descent into the valley, where my dad was picking me up. As I encountered the hills, I began to feel increased discomfort and aching/stinging in other parts of my knees, but felt better coasting down into the valley, where my dad picked me up before I reached the valley bottom. The increased knee pain was gone in 4 days.
I had been anxious to get up there all summer, so that I could get my sinking spot restored back to the way it was before, and then all my concerns about it would be over, and no more stress, no more worries. Whew!
This trip was supposed to do that, and I did get it restored to its former glory. Everything would be back to normal, and hopefully next year will be problem-free, right?
But, I guess I should have known better than that.
Things can never be that simple.
I loved how the sideroad that passed by the 3 ponds has been so inconspicuous, with the entrance all green, and not that noticeable from Crescent Road, with places that were muddy with spring-fed puddles that made it accessible to fewer vehicles yet (only good trucks, atv's, and possibly motorbikes), places where the road was green in the middle, and also with water plantain growing in it in one area (actually I noticed young ones sprouting in a second spot). I never followed it all the way to the end, but I don't think it is a thru road either, but it was extremely rough, with some fallen trees blocking it here and there further up. So, no real traffic problems, mostly cattle in the very late summer.
But anyways, when I first reached my inconspicuous green sideroad, I noticed something that really has gotten me all deeply concerned again!
There are ribbons tied to trees all along the road, mostly red, but some yellow at the entrance to the road and in some other places as well further up the road, with a road number, block number, a date that the ribbon was tied, and the name of a logging company (Tolko)!
There was also a red ribbon with the word "culvert" on it in a spot where there was a low spot in the road. Now that the state of my bog has been restored and I feel better about that, I had become extremely worried, and almost stressed, that my "hidden" inconspicuous road might be going to get an upgrade for logging operations!
The last thing I need is for the road to be "improved", especially since I have been waiting for alders along the west side of the road to grow in to hide the view of my sinking spot! If they remove any bushes, they could make my sinking spot even more visible from a larger stretch of the road than the brief glimpses there are currently!
Right now, you get lots of views of one pond adjacent to the road, with a meadow to the west behind it. But, in only one confined short stretch, you can then see the second (my) pond west of that, with my sinking spot behind it, further to the west!
And, if there are logging trucks going down there next summer, I might have to limit my outings to the weekends. And, if the road is upgraded, it will be more visible, and invite more "explorers" on trucks, atv's and motorbikes, even if it is a dead-end!
I have been hoping that it stays one lane, and that it turns out to be a loop that will link to another road further to the east, since the only loggable mature forest is to the east of my area. All the rest is young forest, grown back after being logged in the 80's or 90's. I hoped it doesn't become a thru-road to another road to the north, because the last thing I need is for more traffic through the area, since that means my best sinking spot I ever had would have an unpredictable risk factor of being seen!
At the very worst, I would have to abandon that spot, and perhaps open a new spot out of sight of the road.
But, with all my injuries in my arms, knees, and even more recently, right shoulder, I don't know if I can manage to open up a new spot with a keyhole saw and push all the pieces of sod under the edges. I have been keeping my fingers crossed that the logging will happen in the winter, and by next summer, it will be finished and quiet. I also hoped it isn't a thru road, since there is already one just to the west.
Since that day, I have had all that running through my mind, being concerned about the threat of the "unknown".
However, while editing this post on the evening of September 11'th, I decided to see if I could alleviate some of the uncertainty, and began to do an online search to see if Tolko posted their plans online. Sure enough, I found them at
http://www.tolko.com/index.php/sustainability/forest-certification/okanagan-woodlands.
According to the website, the work may occur between now and February 27'th, 2017. Here is a Google Maps view of the three ponds (the westernmost pond is my pond) and the area of interest for reference:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@50.1434422,-119.1150553,2006m/data=!3m1!1e3According to the pdf file of planned new cutblocks and roads at
http://www.tolko.com/certification/OK2-14-FN-01.pdf, I took note of the following:
Planned New Roads And Cutblocks.PNG
The black dashed lines are the current roads, the red dashed lines are planned roads, and the pink area is the planned cutblock (the one labelled 374-LV1141 with the two bluish green blobs to the west of it being the three ponds surrounded by two meadows). As you can see from the above picture, the upgraded part of the road doesn't go very far, and ends a little ways east of the third pond (the first two ponds are side-by-side in the bluish green meadow blob below the top meadow/pond), in a rather small cutblock. So, there is no thru road, and hopefully, it will be a short-lived operation, hopefully all done in the winter months. However, there is always the chance the road may be used again for a new cutblock yet to be planned, adjacent to the proposed one, since there is a lot more mature forest in that area than in that small area. Something that concerns me however, is that just to the south-southeast of that, there is also a proposed new route for Crescent Road, which would take it along the east side of the hidden liquid mud and sticks pond, which I took advantage of on
Thursday, August 22'nd, 2013, and hoped to take advantage of again in the future. If the new proposed route is within view of that pond, then the hidden nature of that area with deep mud, and only access to cleanup water is by logs sticking into the pond, would be ruined!
They have another set of pdf files of maps with approved roads and cutblocks, and in the one at
http://www.tolko.com/certification/OK2.pdf, contains the part:
Approved New Roads And Cutblocks.PNG
The part with Crescent Road being re-routed is in yellow (barely visible), meaning, according to the map legend, it is approved. But, I don't see any extra markings for the sideroad that passes by my Crescent Road pond, perhaps meaning it is/was still waiting for approval at the time the map was made. According to the map legend, the cutblock is/was still awaiting approval as well, at the time the map was made. So, I am no longer in the dark about what is happening, although I am not entirely happy about it.
BTW, I had another adventure since then, to be posted in the near future.
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But, I missed out on one of our warmest, driest springs, and one of the best summer heat waves in years! 
Too bad there weren't any female models to "test the ground" 
, so while it would have been nice to have a dramatic video of the sink in the pristine bog, I decided to just have a private sink at that time. Also, since it was still late morning, things were still cool, especially the cleanup water, so therefore it wasn't going to be a submergence at that time, either.