Quicksand Fans

The Boggy Man Report #9: Another Chance At Late Season Sinking!

After my 8'th bikeride of the season on Wednesday, August 25'th, it looked like I would have to wait a while before my next sinking opportunity, due to increased cooler, cloudier, showerier weather. But, just one week later, after several days of the coolest weather we had experienced in months, there was a brief 2-day return to summer! I chose the second day, because the first day was basically a warm up day, where we were recovering from the recent cooler weather, which included even snow (which disappeared rather quickly) in the very high elevations! But, even if it didn't snow at my bog, the rain there would have been rather cold, which would still have had a detrimental effect on the temperature of my cleanup water, and on the surface temperature of my bog! But, I hoped that the sunshine would help improve things, and the forecast for Friday, September 3'rd was for sunny with cloudy periods, with a high of 29˚C, or 84.2˚F, not too shabby for early September, although that was for the valley, and not the mountains, where it would be cooler, but still not too bad. After that, things were going to become cooler again, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity before it disappeared.

I checked out the hunting synopsis, and September 1'st only had the start of bow and arrow hunting, and general hunting for people under 18 (not as many non-adult hunters around as the adults). The main hunting season didn't start until September 10'th, meaning I still had time to enjoy sinking with not too much risk of being mistaken for a deer or moose! So, Friday, September 3'rd was the day!

Once again, my dad dropped me off in the mountains, a little bit earlier in the morning this time (some time in the general area of after 8:30 am or around 9 am), because he had some work to get done. Because it was too early to do any sinking due to things being not heated up yet, I planned on exploring some other nearby areas first. The first place was up Crescent Road a little ways, a meadow to the east of a pond east of Crescent Road. The pond contained superb soft deep mud that bubbled swamp gas that smelled like eggs , but was choked with sticks and branches! I wondered if the meadow had anything like that, but without sticks!

Crescent Road climbed first westward, turned northward, with a little bit more climbing, before turning westward again, with the turnoff to my Crescent Road pond being to the right (heading north). Where Crescent Road headed northward, was a cattle trail that would lead me eastward to the first area I was interested in.

I parked my bike down the cattle trail that ran eastward through the bushes just south of the pond, and then briefly walked to the south side of the pond, to have a look at it. The water was high enough to submerge all the mud on the south side of the pond. When I headed eastward along the shoreline, I noticed that on the southern part of the far western shoreline, was a nice area of mud exposed, although I knew it was full of sticks! But, I decided not to bother taking any pix of it until on the way back, since I didn't feel like backtracking at that time.

I headed back to the trail, headed further east, and then northward, going through the bushes and cattle trails, until I found a meadow, which I wondered if it was the right one. It was rather small, and a low spot on the south end used to have water in it, but was dried up. There were some trees stumps on the north side. If it was the right one, it wasn't anything of interest. I then headed back into the bush, and did some more exploring of the surrounding area, in case there was another one, but didn't really find anything great.

I returned to the pond, and headed to the western shore, where I swapped SDHC cards in my camera, and proceeded to take some photos of the mud there, standing on a couple of logs protruding out into the pond:

The battery in my camera was getting low, going from 2 bars to one (3 is full charge), and the sounds the camera made started to change tone. So, to conserve battery power, I turned off the sound. The low battery power made me quite uncertain if I would be able to shoot any videos if the conditions were right for it.

There was some bubbling when I probed the mud with a stick, which brushed past other sticks submerged under the mud, and also when I was pushing on some sticks on the surface with my foot. I could really smell the sulphur in the air from those bog farts! The mud was light colored on top, sort of light grey, but rusty brown underneath and sticky, coating the stick when I pulled it out.

The mud looked soooooo inviting, that I was tempted to have a sink there, carefully, seeing if I could find a spot without many sticks! But, if I was to do that, it would have had to be later on, since it was still a little bit cool. I had stuff to do at my main sinking spot at the Crescent Road pond, anyways. It was a shame that there were so many sticks choking the mud. Perhaps the sticks themselves were slowly decomposing, and causing the egg-smelling swamp farts.

After trying to find the correct trail back and ending up at Crescent road, just north of the trail entrance (mis-calculated my position relative to the correct cattle trail and went down a wrong one), I returned to my bike and was on my way to my next destination, a meadow or two past my Crescent Road pond turnoff, down a road I had gone down partially before.

So, I headed further up Crescent Road, westward past the turnoff to my pond to my right, and then turned onto a sideroad to the left, and then turned right where it forked just a little ways in. I then followed the road, looking at the marshy looking wooded area to the south as the road headed west, but was more interested in the open meadow with a pond.

I knew that after the road turned south, a little further up, there would be an area of willows to the west of the road, before the meadow to the south. Sure enough, I saw the willows to the west of the road! Continuing southward, I passed by that area, and then noticed the larger clearing, which I knew must have been that meadow! I passed it briefly, before turning back and parking my bike nearby on the trail.

I walked down into the area west of the dirt road, having to go through some trees on the edge, and then through a bunch of willows, trying to pick out the easiest path. I headed for the center, where the willows got smaller, and then I came out into the meadow! I headed to the north side, noticing that a narrow pond bed, which I assumed was beside a beaver dike under more willows on the north side, was empty, and the bottom was moist, but the mud wasn't really that soft. I followed it westward, until I reached another part of the meadow extending further northward, with the main pond bed to the north, with lots of mud exposed, but it was all covered with cattle hoofprints and trails. So, it looked like it wasn't going to be that deep, and because there were hardly any exposed flats that were undisturbed, the largest being only a foot or so in diameter with some floating leaf pondweed leaves on top, I decided not to bother taking any pictures.

I returned to my bike, and decided to explore for a meadow to the east of the road, leaving my bike in a clearing east of the road. I did some hiking around the area briefly, before heading eastward through some willows, in the general direction. But, when I got to what I had assumed to be the area, it turned out to be nothing of interest. If I remember correctly, that was also the area where I located a narrow pond that was low, with criss-crossing logs, with mud exposed, but also with rocks sticking up out of the mud (or did I see it earlier east of the pond with the sulphur farts ).

I hiked through the bush to get back to the road, and my bike. Because it was after 11 am, I decided to have lunch while hiking along that line of willows along the dried-up stream to the west of the road. So, I snacked on a pizza pop while walking along it, finding nothing of interest.

I returned to my bike and started back, stopping at a bend in the road where it went from northward to eastward, where I decided to check out a trail that was near another dried stream, to see if there were any marshy areas there. Snacking on another Pizza Pop, I headed up there, but after looking around, I decided that I was way off track, and returned to my bike.

It was now early in the afternoon, so with things feeling warmer, I eagerly headed to my Crescent Road pond, anxious to see what it was like! Because of the recent rains, I felt that it would likely have stopped becoming thicker, and perhaps even gotten softer on top, perhaps with some water on top as well.

As long as the weather stayed hot and sunny, the mud and cleanup water would retain their warmth for several more weeks yet, allowing for more submersions. But, at this time of year, one cold break in the heat, and those wonderful conditions would be lost, and practically unrecoverable, because the weakening sun and shorter days can only sustain the current storage of heat at this time, but can't compensate for any added cooling. Because of the recent cool weather with likely cold rain that had been snow just slightly higher up in altitude, I wasn't very optimistic about the conditions. So, I wasn't certain about making any new videos, since the thickness of the bog would have regressed slightly, and the temperature might be too uncomfortable for submersion of my head, either for sinking or, more likely, for cleanup.

But, I still had some plans for the day! In addition to planning on having some muddy enjoyment, I brought along with me an oval-shaped "Electrasol" dishwasher detergent pail, so that I could scoop up more thick mud from the surrounding area, and dump it on top of my bog, to build up the mud even more! Raising my bog by just one inch could possibly make my bog exposed one or two weeks earlier, and make the progression of thickening that much sooner as well!

So, I parked my bike by the bushes north of the pond and headed to my sinking spot, taking some things, but not certain about needing all of them. I didn't bother with the breathing hose I had hidden, but did take the breathing tube. I also took my margarine container with the gorillapod inside, in case I was able to do a video.

When I reached the bog, I noticed that while it was bare, it definitely looked moister and softer on top, and there was some water in the lowest areas on the sides. On the northeast side, I noticed a large trail where some large animal had moved towards the bog, but turned around. The trail led to or from the pond, and left a watery hole in the sod to the northeast of the bog. After dropping my things off in the shade of an alder bush, I took some pictures:

I headed to the smaller pond to the south, where I did all my cleanup, to check the water temperature. If it felt like it would be warm enough, then a submersion was possible, but if not, then no submersion, and my submersion season would likely be over. When I approached the northwest side of the tiny pond, the exposed mud there caught my eyes, and I just had to take a picture of it! So, I returned to my things, grabbed my camera case, and returned to take a picture of the exposed mud on the northwestern corner of the small pond. The sticky clay was too much shaded, so I never bothered taking a picture of that.


Because I was still wearing shoes, I bypassed the sticky calf- to thigh-deep clay in the trail, and took a path over an adjacent rockslide, stepping from boulder to boulder. At the small pond, I tested the water with my hand, and determined it to be too cool for immersion of my head, even if the sun warmed it up some more. So, likely no more submersions this year. I thought about taking a picture of another part of the exposed mud from the south side, but there were shadows, which wouldn't have made for a good background.

I returned to my things beside the bog, and after removing some of my clothes, went back to my bog in bare feet and took some more pictures of the bog from different directions and angles:




I removed the last of my clothes (t-shirt) and kept my glasses on, since my head was staying clean and dry. I was now ready to play out a scenario that I would have loved to have done on camera if comfortable submersion/head cleanup had been possible. The scenario was that the animal track through the floating grass ended at the bog, where it sunk out of sight, and I was to become the next victim!

So, I walked northeastward, noticing that there was a trail left by a large animal, leading to a patch of bare ground. Then, I stepped into the middle of it, immediately sinking to my waist in the farting ooze, realizing that what I stepped into was the reason for the trail ending there! I struggled in the doughy mire, slowly sinking deeper, thinking that the animal had sunk down so deep that I couldn't feel it with my feet, and that I would soon be joining it! The grip and feel of the doughy muck felt sooo nice, and when it rose up to my nipples, I exploded!

While sinking, I noticed how what was once a nice warm layer on top was now replaced by a frigid upper layer with a thinner warm layer right at the surface. So, it looked like the cold weather was starting to suck the heat out of the mire from the top down, and the weakening sun wasn't able to completely compensate, being only able to just warm up the surface, just what I had feared. The cold layer in the upper part would only get progressively larger, and the surface warm area weaker as time progressed. I really dread the approach of autumn!

I continued to linger in the mud and struggle, working myself up higher to lay on the surface. I played around for a while, loving the feel of it, although I was feeling a little bit chilled from the moisture evaporating on my skin. But, it still felt not too bad. Then, on the west side, facing north, I struggled horizontally some more on the thicker previously undisturbed mire, my bent legs sucked down right away, followed by my crotch, and leaning forward, my arms sucked into the thick doughy ooze and getting stuck, and struggling some more. I then pushed my arms straight down, trying to push myself up, only to have my hands and arms sucked down deeper in the thick doughy ooze, and for me to settle down deeper, struggling more, imagining that I was going to be sucked completely under, until I once again exploded!

I then spent some more time enjoying the mud, struggling on the east side, partially horizontal, and then standing up, facing west, sinking back down to my chest, just loving the feel of it. But, after a while, I finally decided that it was time to quit, since I had some work to do, once I cleaned up and warmed up, so I worked myself out of the sucking ooze.

I headed into the edge of the pond to clean up, feeling a bit chilled because of the wind that kept on coming up, the moisture on me evaporating, and the fact that the air, while warm, wasn't as warm as in the past. I cleaned my upper body, but at first left my lower body muddy, since it would get muddy anyways when I started the mud transfer. But, I wasn't warming up enough to start the work yet, so I cleaned myself all the way to my feet, air-dried, and got dressed to get fully warmed.

Still taking longer to warm up than I had hoped, I returned to my bike to put away my breathing tube and margarine container containing my gorillapod, since I didn't need them. I then went for a walk to warm myself up better, heading down the sideroad to the first pond, briefly walking around the west side of that first pond, which was just east of my pond. There wasn't much mud exposed, except for perhaps in between the grass, but it was in view of the sideroad. I headed around the north side of that pond, and then to the sideroad, and walked to Crescent Road, turning to the west, and walking for a ways up it, past the two beaver ponds that were to the south of the road, before finally starting to feel myself warming up, especially my hands. I turned back and walked down to the easternmost pond, which I saw some mud exposed on the northern shoreline. It was in view of the road, and was full of cattle prints, but I still wanted to take a look at it, since it looked interesting. I then returned to my bike, feeling nice and warm again, with my hands no longer feeling cold. I snacked on a Sweet'n Salty almond bar on the way back to my sinking spot, and then, I was ready to begin my work!

I got undressed, grabbed my pail, and started to search for the spot on the edge of the pond where I felt some stiff mud close to the surface, which would be easy to gather, just northeast of my sinking area. But, I couldn't find it, realizing that it must have been further out and I didn't want to get that far into the water. But, I noticed how fragile the peaty rotten mats of what used to be grass was, now with some moss starting to grow on top! I first found a break in the surface, and I dug down to find easy access to the mud, easier than taking it from the pond, where I would have had to be in the cold water during the extraction!

So, I proceeded to fill my pail with mud, and then plopped it into my bog towards the center, as far as I could reach. At first, when it hit the surface, it would disappear into it, completely sucked into the bog! But, eventually, it started to pile up on top higher. Once the first mound got several inches high, looking like a giant cow pie, I cleaned my hands, and took a picture of it with another pailful of mud beside it, with plans on snapping another picture or more as I progressed:


I was happy that I was able to stay on just soggy ground and not be in the water, because I was able to remain warm during the job! Last year, I dug mud from a hole where I was partially sitting in water, and was feeling a lot more uncomfortable. Since then, the mud in that hole had since expanded to meet the lowering water levels, with it now full of really liquid mud over thicker stuff deeper down where I had stopped digging.

While the mud was plentiful wherever I dug, I found that I wasn't able to dig down too deep, however, because several inches down, the mud was full of sticks and debris (would have probably had to go really deep to get past them). So, after cleaning out a layer of debris-free mud several inches down, I would move on to another spot, tear through the rotting peaty layer, and proceed to dig the mud from there until the clean stuff was depleted, and then move on. Each time, I filled the previous hole with peaty stuff so that it would not be a hole hazard. I gradually covered my bog with mound after mound of fresh mud a few inches high, keeping an eye on the time, since I decided to stop around 4:30 pm, so that I would have time to spread and mix it in, and then clean up before 5:30 pm, since I needed to leave for home at that time, to get home before dark.

I then moved to the south of the sinking area and started to dig from there was well, hoping that the different area would have cleaner mud deeper down, but it didn't. Also, the trees were shading the area already, which started to make me feel cooler. While I had been working out of the pond, I was still kneeling in water as well, and my arms were immersed in the water, and the mud I was pulling up was cold, since it was buried under the peaty layer, and it was late summer. I paused, kneeling down, when a large airplane flew low just to the north of me, just like last time during my video. That was the second time that such a large plane flew so low, so close by! I hadn't seen much in the way of aircraft so close in a long time, until these last two times. I hoped no one saw me naked in the grass, although at that distance, it might have still been hard to see me.

It was getting after 4 pm, and I was uncertain about having time to get the entire bog covered with mounds, but I was now piling it on closer to the edges, and just kept on going until it was time to quit. I had decided to take one picture of the bog with all the mounds on it before smoothing it out, to show how much mud I added to the bog.

Finally, it was around 4:30 pm, and I decided that that was it. I had hoped to cover more of the bog, but with what I had added, should raise the level of the mud by an inch or so, which would hopefully make the bog exposed one or two weeks earlier for a given amount of water level drop the following year, and make the subsequent thickening that much earlier as well! I wanted to do more, but at least this would have made a definite difference, and I hoped that I would be able to get an earlier start next spring, since we had such horrible weather until it turned hot the second week of July this year, something that wasn't typical.

So, with my mud transfer done for the day, I first began to spread some mounds out from the edge, before crawling out onto the bog from the north side, and spreading it all out all over, turning it into a really gooey patch of mire, the fresh surface stuff similar to what it was like in mid-August, and I couldn't really feel the boundary between that and the original mud in the bog. But, once I had it all levelled, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to take a picture of the mounds of mud covering the bog first! I couldn't believe I had forgotten, after thinking about it just shortly before! So, I would have to settle with taking a final pic of the bog at its new level.

I wasn't certain about having another sink, since I wasn't certain about getting myself muddy up to my chest again, since I was starting to feel a bit cooler. I first wanted to just stay on my stomach, and crawl to solid ground to the south of me, but it was a fun challenge, due to the sticky holding power of the mud. Also, with each movement I made, I began to get sucked down deeper and deeper, the soft mud feeling slightly springy underneath me, and giving way more with each movement! That made the mud simply too wonderful to resist some last minute sinking!

So, I struggled a little there, before standing up, and struggling some more, facing south, the mud finally feeling nicer than earlier in the day. I knew that it was getting close to time to clean up, but I just couldn't resist! After struggling close to the center, I turned around and faced the north side, where I was struggling against thicker mud, which felt even better! Then, I repositioned myself in the thicker stuff on the north side, facing south, and started to struggle and struggle, thinking that I had no solid ground behind me, and was instructed to swim through the muck to the other side in order to save myself, or I would continue to sink and then drown! But, it was too thick to swim through, and all my swimming strokes did nothing, except churn the doughy, batterlike ooze in front of me, and make me sink even deeper! The sucking quagmire rose up my chest, and I was realizing that I wouldn't be able to swim to safety, and that I was going to drown in this stuff! I continued to struggle, and as the mire rose closer to my armpits, and the surface in front of me quaked from my struggles, and the south edge was so far away in front of me, out of reach, I exploded once again, for the third time that day!

During the sink, I was really quite comfortable in it this time, and wished that I could have gone completely under, but knew that cleanup would be quite uncomfortable, and perhaps incomplete for my head, and would take too long overall.

Now I was finished, and worked myself out of the mire, wiping the mud off my skin into the bog, and then tried to push the muck from the sides of the bog towards the center, since it was already thicker around the edges, but softer in the center.

I headed to the south end for cleanup, into the smaller pond there, sitting on a log and cleaning myself off nicely, before returning to my things, where I did some final cleaning of my feet, air-dried off, and got dressed, noticing that the itch was back, which I felt was more from the water than the mud. I was waiting for the shadows to move past my bog so that I could take a picture of it in the sun, but instead, the shadows became more extensive and solid, looking like the bog wasn't going to see any more sun that day. So, I took pictures of my bog anyways:



I gathered my things and returned to my bike, stopping beside my bog to jump on the grass beside it to watch it quake before leaving. At my bike, I swapped SDHC cards in my camera again, put everything away, and was on my way at 5:40 pm, only 10 minutes later than I had expected, but 20 minutes earlier than last time. However, even though I got home before 8:30 pm, it was even darker than when I came home later the last time! Perhaps, if I have another opportunity to go biking, I should start back at 5 pm instead of 5:30.

Overall it was a rather nice day, although the wind did come up at times. I wasn't surprised that the conditions weren't ideal for submersions, which was why I had prepared to do some bog enhancements. I was happy that no animal was stuck in my bog, although the trail seemed to indicate that one did have a bit of a struggle through the floating grass/rushes between the pond and my bog. I did have a bit of fun in the bog, although I wished that it had been a little warmer, since it took so long for me to warm myself up again. But, if I had known that I could extract mud easily from under the peaty rotting sod before, I might not have wasted so much time warming up as much, and could have therefore made more progress. But, I feel that the difference I made should make my bog exposed earlier next year, and that, coupled with the fact that this spring was unseasonably cool and wet, means that perhaps it might become exposed close to a month earlier, or perhaps 3 weeks earlier, if we get a decent spring next year.

I was surprised to see no cattle, since I saw so many at the same time last year. Fewer cattle meant that there was less risk of my bog having any uninvited guests.

When I was heading home, I noticed that the air felt nice and warm in places, but there were really cold pockets all over, more intense than I had encountered in a long time, likely because of the time of the year, and the fact that the warm weather had just returned, and it would have taken time for all the remaining cold air under the trees to be reduced, but the warm weather wasn't going to last, since it was going to turn cooler the next day. The official high for Vernon for the day was 28.1˚C or 82.6˚F, fairly warm, but not as hot as on previous hot days. The Elkhart Lodge, my gauge for high elevation weather, hit 24˚C, or 75.2˚F, fairly nice, but not quite as hot as I liked, and I did notice that it didn't feel quite as hot as the last time. I was glad I went, because the next day, we had strong winds, and the temperature turned cooler. The day after, wet, windy weather, and it was only around 11˚C, or 52˚F in the valley during the worst weather in the middle of the afternoon (it was warmer earlier and did warm up slightly afterward, but remained cool). There is no sign of any really warm weather the following week before September 10'th, the first day of main Hunting Season, so, if I do find a chance to go again, it won't be for a couple of weeks at least, and I know for a fact that my submersion season is over for this year. The rains in the mountains will be very cold, continuing to chill things further up there, and there had been talk of the chance of snow in the highest elevations, although it wouldn't last.

If I do get another chance to return to my bog this year, I will likely add more mud to it to get it to be exposed earlier yet, to bring the excellent late season bog conditions even closer to the heat of the summer, when I can enjoy it more. But, weather permitting, I would wait until at least a week after the beginning of main hunting season, since things could be busy in the bushes when it first opens, before settling down.

So, I just wait and see what happens.