Quicksand and Sinking Basics

[Duncan Edwards]

Wild hogs are becoming an increasing problem in the Southeast. The hunting section of the local paper is reporting ever larger kills of big, aggressive, porkers. Pigs don't like dogs and dogs have much better senses than people. Might be a good time to make a silent sentry of man's best friend while out in the wild alone.

[bart1997]

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[YerK]

Okay. Let me just say that I don't really know about wild pigs. The pigs we raised on the farm seemed to effortlessly crap everywhere like horses do, and turned all of their area into poo-filled mud that stank to the high heavens.

I did see a discovery channel thing about wild pigs becoming more of a problem everywhere. They had hunters the southern US (I think Georgia) that were hunting for wild pigs. They said in the past, this sort of hunt was much easier, as the boars would defend their turf, but in addition to growing bigger now, they've taken to fleeing from any dogs or hunters. The narrator seemed to think this was due genes from Russian wild boars that someone may have imported in an effort to improve the hunting. According to the show, wild pigs are becoming more of a problem worldwide.

[Nessie]

Might be a good time to make a silent sentry of man's best friend while out in the wild alone.

SILENT sentry?

I only tried to take a dog to a mud site once. She barked the whole time. At absolutely every little thing.

Probably helps if the sentry is trained, huh?

Nessie

[Nessie]

Then, there are the alkali sloughs/ponds/lakes, where the alkali kills most plants (although some, like saltwort, thrive in such conditions), preventing the best mud from being covered over and compressed by vegetation. While that mud was among the best and most extensive I ever sank into/crossed, the white stuff on top can actually slowly, painlessly, eat your flesh without you even knowing it!

Ya know, that just may be something I need to educate myself about.

That's scary.

I did encounter burning mud once. I walked into it and yeeeeeow, I didn't last more than a few seconds. I just got out of there and rinsed my skin off fast in the river.

I have no idea why it burnt my skin. It was only a shallow pit of mud located behind apartment buildings in a semi-deserted park and I certainly wasn't going to actually sink. I just meant to get my feet and legs muddy.

Must have been toxic chemicals of some kind but I couldn't see anything in the area at all that would account for such a thing being washed into that mud. It was just a boggy area near a riverbank. Not an industrial area at all.

Nessie

[Duncan Edwards]

Might be a good time to make a silent sentry of man's best friend while out in the wild alone.

SILENT sentry?

I only tried to take a dog to a mud site once. She barked the whole time. At absolutely every little thing.

Probably helps if the sentry is trained, huh?

Nessie

I guess I've gotten spoiled. Get yourself an Akita/German Shepard mix and see if your results don't improve. While no more devoted at very least the two legged creatures are generally impressed and any alarm is genuine.

[Nessie]

I guess I've gotten spoiled. Get yourself an Akita/German Shepard mix and see if your results don't improve. While no more devoted at very least the two legged creatures are generally impressed and any alarm is genuine.

Two-legged creatures are much worse than anything with four legs, that's for sure.

Unless they're ducks. Sometimes I hear ducks taking off and landing in the lake outside my mudpit and I don't mind them hanging out with me at all.

Nessie

[Boggy Man]

Then, there are the alkali sloughs/ponds/lakes, where the alkali kills most plants (although some, like saltwort, thrive in such conditions), preventing the best mud from being covered over and compressed by vegetation. While that mud was among the best and most extensive I ever sank into/crossed, the white stuff on top can actually slowly, painlessly, eat your flesh without you even knowing it!

Ya know, that just may be something I need to educate myself about.

That's scary.

I will never forget that day on August 16'th, 2008. The mud was soooo wonderful, felt like clay, ranging from thick and gooey to soft and puddinglike, depending on how close or far away from solid ground you were. It was sooo great, being in soft bottomless mire that was farting swamp gas that smelled like gasoline, slowly sinking towards my shoulders, seeing the sea of white quaking around me. The first half of my trek through it was easier, but the second half was much more difficult, giving me "what have I gotten myself into" moments. It was really gooey, and the only way to really move through it was to first clear away the fragile white crust in front of me, sit back, work my legs to the surface, move them forwards, stand up in the new spot and sink to my waist, clear away more of the white crust in front of me, sit back, and so on. All the while, it was farting more swamp gas as it was agitated, my best mud experience, followed by my worst experience upon exiting. When I exited (wasn't certain how many hours I was in the mud), the white stuff stuck to my muddy legs, and I tried to brush some of it off, but perhaps I should have been more thorough. But, instead of heading to the adjacent ponds to clean up, I decided to return for a second sink to my shoulders (or was it my neck) in mud so thick and sticky that the only way to push my hands deeper down was to hold them together and use the strength of both arms to push them down. Some flakes of alkali may have stayed on my legs through that session, making things worse! After I exited, even more of that white stuff stuck to my legs, and then I briefly entered the mud again, this time where the mud was a narrow margin between the lake and shoreline, sinking quickly to my waist before exiting again, the white stuff sticking to my legs as i exited again. I then had to walk around the alkali lake and over to the adjacent ponds (lakes) for cleanup, the first with lower alkalinity, and the second fresh enough to support leeches, a trip which prolonged the exposure further until I reached the first pond, which was when the damage was revealed!

If it wasn't for that alkali on top, it would have been the ultimate quicksander's playground (although I wouldn't trust it in my eyes even then, unless the area was a more neutral ph)! I was covered from my neck down with thick mud, but the majority of the skin damage was from my knees down, where that alkali stuck to them, but with a few spots near my right wrist, some near my elbows, and at least one near my waist. Some slight stinging was the only sign that there was any irritation going on! The worst place was in a band along the edge of the purest (whitest) alkali, where it seemed to be crumbly, the place where it most stuck to me.

P8160138.JPG

Here is the overhead view of it. I crossed from south to north on its western (left) side. The two ponds/lakes I had to go to clean up in are to the right of it:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.3 ... 9&t=h&z=17

I did encounter burning mud once. I walked into it and yeeeeeow, I didn't last more than a few seconds. I just got out of there and rinsed my skin off fast in the river.

I have no idea why it burnt my skin. It was only a shallow pit of mud located behind apartment buildings in a semi-deserted park and I certainly wasn't going to actually sink. I just meant to get my feet and legs muddy.

Must have been toxic chemicals of some kind but I couldn't see anything in the area at all that would account for such a thing being washed into that mud. It was just a boggy area near a riverbank. Not an industrial area at all.

Nessie

If the burning was immediate, then I suspect that some sort of acid must have been in the mud (battery acid?), since acid burns, burn. Alkali burns are mostly painless, although I did feel some very mild stinging sensations.

Now, if I was able to return with a shovel, and skim off the surface, to create an alkali-free path through the mud, then it could be a bit safer, but there is still some risk, and it may be good to have containers of fresh water nearby to clean off immediately upon exiting, before any specks of alkali that may have been missed and had contacted me have a chance to do any damage. Choosing the east side instead of the west side so I would be closer to the other ponds would also be better, too. But, the best way to be safe, is not to attempt sinking there at all, and look for other, non-alkali places to sink, rather than risk getting into a "moth to a flame" scenario. But still, it is fun to fantasize about, especially since I know what the mud is like!

[Boggy Man]

I just thought of another hazard, namely hornet's nests. I have had to make wide circles around the odd one in the willows in some places.

[YerK]

Alkali is a sort of opposite of acid, but it winds up burning in much the same way. If I remember right, that white stuff is described as "caustic". Not the same as acidic, the chemical reaction is a bit different, but the end result is just as painful. It's almost as if something sufficiently alkali can cause your skin to act as an acid, dissolving both skin and alkali cake at the same time. (Again, that is all assuming I remember my chemistry from 20 years ago well enough) I *think* the white cake on top of the mud is the result of the alkali leeching to the surface and drying.

I have suggestions:

1) Take with you (of all things!) a snow shovel. That wide, flat pan should be pretty wonderful for getting the cake out of your way. (as well as something wide and flat to help you move through faster/easier.
2) Take along several 2 or 3 liter bottles of the absolute cheapest diet soda you can find, and use it to rinse off with next time. My bet is that it will fizz rather a lot as you use it.
3) Take a friend or at least a water-tight cellphone. This doesn't strike me as something you want to get caught in.