Quicksand Fans

After my last bikeride, I had to wait 2 weeks before the conditions were sunny and warm enough for mud loosening. I could have gone sooner, but wanted to give things a few days of sunshine to warm up. So, Wednesday, July 6'th, was supposed to be sunny with temperatures in the valley around 33˚C, or 91.4˚F, with a cold front moving through the following day, which was also supposed to be warm, that is, until the cold front moved through. Once again, I had to bike all the way up into the mountains, because my dad's accident prevented him from taking me up the climb. I left just slightly after 8:30 am, perhaps around 10 minutes later than last time, but reached the regular dropoff point past the climb at around 12:29 pm, around 15 minutes earlier than last time! It was perhaps because last time I had gone off onto a sideroad on the way up and also stopped in a grassy area by the road for lunch, while being eaten by mosquitoes. Also, I was likely in better shape than last time as well. Once again, I walked my bike up the steep initial portion of Crescent Road, and this time, when I got back on my bike, I didn't get cramps! But, biking up in that heat was really making me feel a bit tired. I knew I would cool off soon enough, though!

I dropped off my bike in the shade of trees north of the Crescent Road pond, and got out the bug spray. Along with the full can that was missing the push nozzle, I also brought two cans that were mostly empty, complete with nozzles. I tried each of those mostly empty cans, but they sprayed mostly air. So, I transferred the nozzle from one of the empty cans to the full one, and toxified myself nicely, to keep the bloodthirsty insects at bay. I grabbed my things, including the bug spray, and headed over to my sinking spot. This time, I took along my margarine container with the gorillapod, in case I made a video. When I reached the sinking spot, I noticed that there was more mud exposed, but mostly closer to the edges, mostly the south edge, and a larger area in the north edge, sticking out towards the middle. The water was also noticeably lower in the surrounding grass, and I had also noticed it lower when I was heading to that area from my bike, which was much easier than last time. Where I had pulled myself out of the mire in the video last time was a water-filled depression, as was the northeast corner. I put my things in the shade of some alders to the west, and decided to get the junk sweater and parka I had hid in the woods, in the vicinity of a seasonal stream, before having to take off my shoes and socks to get close enough to my sinking spot to take any pictures of it, something I wanted to do when I was close to being ready to do the mud loosening.

I found the fallen trees laying high overhead over the stream in the forested gulley, and found my junk sweater right away, hanging on a branch of a nearby tree. But, I searched and searched and searched, looking on both sides of the stream, and couldn't find the junk parka, which helps keep me warmer than the porous sweater. After a while, I finally gave up, and returned to my sinking spot with just the junk sweater.

I changed to my junk shorts, walked barefoot to the sinking spot with my camera, and snapped a couple of pictures of the area before I loosened it. I had thought about taking a video, but figured that it would end the same way as last time, with water running over top of the mud. I figured that once I loosened the mud and mixed it in with the water, that the patch of mire would then be ready for me to shoot a sinking video in.



So, I finished changing into my junk clothes, wearing the junk shorts, junk sweater, and my glasses, but no hat. I headed to the north side of the patch of mire, and stepped into the middle of the exposed stuff, sinking to my chest in the thick gooey farting ooze! It felt soooo wonderful, that I almost felt like I could get stimulated, but not quite. I struggled a bit, and began to churn the water into the mud, mainly the water on the northeast corner, and the patch of water on the west side where I had exited last time. I couldn't believe the wonderful farting, and sloshing and slurping noises the mud made as I stirred it with my arms! There was a layer with watery mud underneath in some places, and it perhaps had accumulated more swamp gas. Also, the junk sweater itself interacting with the mud, which stuck to it like glue, also likely contributed to the interesting sounds, something I wished I had caught on camera. Perhaps later on, once I finished the mud loosening and cleaned off and dried off and warmed back up. I just maneuvered myself around the patch of mire, mixing all the water in, finding that the mud was soft all the way down, or at least to my shoulder depth, and likely deeper if I had gone down deeper! It looked like the mud was already pre-loosened! But, as luck would have it, leg cramps were getting in the way of my movement through the mire, with them hitting hard each time I tried moving around! So, I couldn't move any mud up from deeper down with my feet, but it was soft down there, anyways.

Finally, once I had mixed in all the water that was around, I climbed out of the ooze, and watched some water move back in, since I was no longer displacing the mud with my body's volume, forcing the level of the mud to drop slightly. I then laid on my stomach on the edge, and proceeded to churn the mud and water until the water disappeared from my arms' reach, and then moved around to another spot to eliminate the water there as well. I worked my way all around my patch of mire, with my arms getting quite tired from doing the "swimming" motions through the thick, gooey mud. Once I was satisfied that the water was all gone from the surface, I decided to call it quits in terms of the mud loosening, and headed to do some cleanup. I wanted to take a picture of the patch of sucking goo right away, but wanted to clean off first. I figured that the surface would darken nicely as well. I just couldn't wait to shoot a video of my first underbog sink of the season, this time with the junk sweater on, once I cleaned off and warmed up!

So, after doing some rolling around in the water-covered mossy area and sitting on some floating grass/rushes closer to the water's edge for a bit of preliminary cleanup near my sinking spot, I headed to the south end for the full cleanup, and also for a stimulating horizontal struggle.

I reached the south end, removed the junk shorts, but left the junk sweater on. Facing north, I kneeled down on the same patch of mud that I had struggled in last time, this time thicker, and worked my bent legs, knee-first, into the thick ooze, with it rising to my crotch. I bent over, and laid my arms on the ground in front of me, with the voracious mire sucking my hands and forearms in, my front and chest slowly pressing into the thick, doughy ooze, with it making interesting sounds as I struggled with my sweater on. Imagining that I was stuck and slowly sinking, to soon be totally consumed by the thick ooze, I struggled vigorously, with the more making interesting sounds, until things exploded!

I got up from the mire and smoothed out the impressions. I then picked up my junk shorts and then headed to the south side of the shallow pond there, noticing that the stream leaving it was not flowing so much, with not enough water to clean up in. The tiny pool of water to the east of the stream was also too shallow, with mud easily being stirred up. So, I headed into the south side of the shallow pond, finding that while the hot sun did warm up the top layer of water, it was still a bit on the cool side deeper down, meaning that we still didn't have enough warm sunny days to heat the water throughout its shallow depth. I sat on a submerged log and cleaned myself off, as well as my junk sweater and shorts (can't remember when I took off the junk sweater, but it was before I cleaned it in the pond). I finished cleaning myself off, as well as my junk clothes, and wrung them out as much as I could.

I returned to my main sinking spot and my things to get dressed and warm up further before shooting the video of my planned sink into my freshly mixed mire, only to discover that the entire thing had now become a patch of shallow water, with no mud exposed at all! I guess that I hadn't waited long enough before mixing the water into the mud, and I still hadn't warmed up enough yet to do it again. I wished that I could have just jumped back in and mix things better, but I was just too cool still, a bit tired, and didn't feel like going through the effort again that day.

I hung my junk shorts and junk sweater on some dead branches to dry, and then took some pix of the patch of mire, now covered with shallow water:

I got dressed, disappointed that I wasn't able to make the video, and that I didn't really have time to warm up enough to do any extensive mud loosening. However, I did know that it was a nice consistency all the way through, meaning that once the water level dropped a little more to expose the mud, it would be of the quality it was last August! So, rather than wasting time to mix the water into it to thin it out, and then have it thicken back up again once the water level dropped further, I was happy enough to just leave it as it was, and was looking forward to the next time, when it would hopefully be exposed, thick and gooey, and treacherous!

Before calling it a day, I took my camera, and headed to the location of my horizontal struggles at the south end to finally take pictures of it. Because I was clothed and wearing shoes, I made my way back to the south end partially walking through the alders further from the shoreline, taking care to avoid the water in the grass. I took a few pictures of the mud there, including where I had struggled horizontally, hoping that they would turn out okay, even with the shadows.




Now, it was time to call it quits. I returned to my things, packed everything away, grabbed my junk shorts and sweater, and returned to my bike. I then took the junk sweater back to its hiding spot on a tree under a fallen tree by a seasonal creek in the woods north of the pond, glancing around again for the junk parka, and wondering where it was.

I returned to my bike, put my things away, and started on my way back just before 5 pm, finally warming up quickly, and then wishing that I was back in the mud again, loosening it up. If I had arrived at the pond a few hours earlier, I would have had enough time to warm up and re-enter the mud to stir things up. I got home at 8:03 pm, over an hour before dark. Since I had started biking all the way to and from my sinking spot on my own, I have found myself too tired to continue doing things for another hour, wasting the extra long days that won't last long soon.

Overall, it was the sunniest, warmest day yet for my bikeride, with the official temperature in Vernon hitting around 33˚C, or 91.4˚F, while the Elkhart Lodge, a site in the high elevations between the Okanagan valley and the west coast, my gauge for high elevation conditions, hit 25˚C, or 77˚F, which reflected the nice weather in the mountains.

If I had known that I was able to jump into the exposed mud and play around in it without water running over it, then I would have shot a video with my first submersion of the season, instead of starting off with mud loosening. It was a shame that the water covered it after I was done and finished with the process of mixing the water that was there before into the mud. If I had known that it was going to happen, I would have taken a picture of the bog before it got covered with the water. Now that I noticed the interesting sounds the mud made with me wearing my junk sweater, I think I might try shooting a sink with the sweater on next time, and perhaps also some sort of junk pants to go with it, although if it thickens too much, then the effect would be lost, since the sweater needs to absorb a bit of water to start making the interesting sounds. I figured that with a further week or so of water drop, the water covering the mud would disappear, and my bog will be ready for a season of submergences!

After reviewing my previous adventure reports from the past couple of years, I found that I had only transported the junk sweater from my Edwin Lakes area pond to my Crescent Road pond, leaving the junk parka back at the Edwin Lakes area pond. So, mystery solved!

I was hoping that with the hot weather, that it was finally safe to call it summer, and leave all the cool unsettled weather behind. But, after my bikeride, after the cold front went through and we went through several days of a cold low pressure area, instead of a new warm ridge of high pressure building back in to bring sunshine and heat a week after, a SECOND cold low moved in, prolonging the clouds and unsettled weather! Since then, it has been just unsettled, with showers and thundershowers, and thunderstorms, with one disturbance after another moving down out of the northwest. Sometimes the weather would get fairly warm before cooling off again, but with the clouds and threat of rain, I haven't been able to do any biking, hiking, or sinking. People here in BC are starting to call this month "July-tober", after having to go through "June-uary" last month! The humidity recently has been higher than it normally is here in southern BC as well. Right now, we have several more days of below normal temperatures, with some real rainy days. We are normally around 27˚C or 80.6˚F at this time of year, but we have been consistently below that, lately. The DUCK days of summer! In fact, except for short periods of closer to normal and very brief flashes of above normal weather, we have been consistently colder than normal since around mid-February, with things lagging a month behind! We are currently getting the type of weather we would expect for June! But, they are predicting summer to finally arrive here at the end of the month, and stay with us for some time! So, I wait, and hope I don't lose my fitness I had gained from biking up into the mountains before I can go again. I might have to start doing some shorter biking down and up the valley in the meantime again, but it seems to be hard on my knees when I try and exert myself to get anything out of the short steep climbs.