mudxdresser wrote:Yes, ever so true, it is not just footwear that can be a problem! My favorite thing to wear in the mud is a long dress but I always first make sure that I can get out of it through the top as in thick mud most of the time it will be too heavy to get out of the mud with it on. Sometimes that entails ripping a seam or two out so that the dress can be easily ripped to provide enough room to slip out of . Note also that when wearing the really long dresses I prefer, they may stretch such that your feet become tangled in them and you'll have to rip the entire dress apart. For that reason, I recommend only cotton or rayon dresses, spandex or nylon is much more difficult to rip.
There is also another more subtle thing to keep in mind if wearing any sort of pants or bodysuit, basically, avoid taking it off as sometimes your feet will not readily slide inside the leg opening and the more you lower the garment to try to free them, the more risk you run that you will have difficulty pulling the garment back up. If you wear that type garment into mud, make sure it stays on and that you can pull yourself out without removing the garment.
I maybe took it too far one day when my rubber hip waders filled up with quickmud. I was enjoying the struggle to get out when I was down to my thighs and in the frenzy I didn't really notice the mud creeping up to the rims of my waders. Then I felt it soaking through my pantyhose and around my backside
(I was wearing a mini skirt at the time).
Without a doubt I was getting more and more stuck with every move and as I tried pulling one boot up the other leg just kept pushing deeper into the thick sandy mud deep down. Another fifteen minutes of struggling and I was waist deep and no solid bottom under my feet. The surface around me had turned to jelly and I had nothing solid to push up on. I trashed around for another ten minutes and lost pretty much all my energy.
It was the only time I've really panicked and nearly an hour in I was down to my chest. My waders felt like setting concrete around my legs and soooo heavy, but I couldn't move them at all. I dug through the surface to find my belt that was holding the waders up and managed to undo it - I thought I'd be able to just slip out of the waders and come back another time to retrieve them. No such luck I was thoroughly stuck to the point of hardly being able to move anything below my waist. I was locked in a serious quickmud situation.
Meanwhile the camera had overheated and turned off and I was down to my armpits. I think the only thing stopping me from sinking deeper was my arms floating on the surface and the volume of my chest
. By this time I was thinking about calling for help (no phone - just shouting) but then the embarrassment of the situation killed that thought. Mud had started to splatter up my neck and all around my shoulders and I was starting to get into a real mess - physically and emotionally.
I had no option but to claw the mud from around me until I had dug a sloppy hole and could see the top of one wader. The rubber of the shafts of my waders had folded around my thighs and was seriously squeezing them to the point where it was painful. I couldn't move my legs at all -it was like total bondage down below - a mixture of rubber, sand and mud filled boots. I was exhausted and trapped.
The more I stood still the more the wobbly mud flowed back into the hole. I had to get out and had no intention of making into the local newspaper. I think the fact of being publically humiliated spurred me on and another hour, yes one more hour, and I finally managed to get my hands under the heel of one boot and was barely able to get it to the surface. Because I was more or less chest deep, having one mud filled boot on the surface and the other sunken vertically down, I felt like I was doing the spits and then cramp set in!! It was agony not expected and I have no idea how I did it, but I pulled my other wader out despite the pull and suction of the mud. I was now covered from ear to toe in this quickmud stuff - clay and super fine sand.
The rest is history apart from the strained hip I got out of it! If you like being stuck and are in no danger of incoming tides and a watery demise, try wearing boots
And of course, don't do it alone unless you are absolutely sure you can get out safely.
Has anyone else had a similar experience wearing rubber boots or waders?
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