My August 16'th, 2023 Adventure, Part 4, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!Once I finished drying out, I got dressed, grabbed my drinks and camera in its case, and headed back to my bike. Still feeling on the cool side, I pulled out my plastic bag with a paper bag containing Pizza Pops (and a Sweet & Salty almond granola/nut bar for later), and then went for a walk back to the sideroad, and walked northward up it, to the ring bog pond, while eating the Pizza Pops. Where the stream left the ring bog pond, below the beaver dam on its south end, I noticed that there was mud exposed as well as algae, which looked interesting.
I decided I would take a photo of it later. I continued onward, noticing that the thimble berries were starting to ripen, and I snacked on a couple as well, with the berries so delicate, that they could be easily crushed by pressing against them with my tongue. No chewing needed. I headed further past the ring bog pond, following where the road turned east, passing by the loop sidetrail that headed north. A little ways further east, down the road, I noticed another sidetrail heading off northeastward, and I decided to follow it for a bit. It went for a little ways before ending in a wider opening in the forest, with a single trail heading off into the woods past that. I followed that trail a little ways, passing the time, waiting for me to warm up, frustrated with the thick smoke filtering most of the sunshine, cutting down on the heat!
When the trail seemed to cross over a low damper greener stretch (seasonal stream? ) and up the other side, I decided to turn around and head back. I was still feeling a little on the cool side, but not as bad. When I reached the south side of the ring bog pond, I set my things down and headed down to the boggy stream with my camera, and took some photos of the exposed mud and algae there:
2023 08 16 2L Boggy Stream North Of Crescent.jpg
2023 08 16 2M Boggy Stream North Of Crescent.jpg
2023 08 16 2N Boggy Stream North Of Crescent.jpg
2023 08 16 2O Boggy Stream North Of Crescent.jpg
It was tempting to investigate the mud further, but I wanted to get back to my main bog. So, I returned to the road and headed back, and then at one point, when I bent over for something (can't remember), I suddenly felt dizzy!
I was concerned that perhaps I was overheating, since I had just noticed that the chills were completely gone!
Or, perhaps, it was from breathing in all that smoke!
Anyways, as I continued on back to bike, I started to feel a little bit better. I put my lunch bag away in my bike, and returned to my things beside my bog, feeling warm and ready for my next sinking session!
It was getting close to 3 pm, and I needed to decide on what I was going to do.
First, I pulled out my breathing hose from its nearby hiding spot under a spruce tree, and also pulled out my makeshift headstrap to have all my options ready. I had my swim goggles, swim cap, and Gorillapod all out of their packages. Now, with the smoke obscuring the sun, I could try and set up the camera and new Gorillapod on my makeshift headstrap, with the camera and Gorillapod covered in plastic wrap, to shoot a first person sinking video, done right this time, without any sun to create shadows or cause color to fade, or I could just shoot another dramatic sinking scene, or I could have a personal underbog breathing hose sink, or I could have an on-camera breathing hose sink.
Decisions, decisions, decisions....
Then, I started to think that the first person sink setup would take too long, and not be guaranteed to work. The new Gorillapod has a different design for the camera mount, where there is a 90˚ bend in one spot, which would take a bit of fiddling to get positioned properly, and it might extend a bit further, causing a bit more adjustments, before even making some tiny test videos to get things right (camera wasn't far enough to the side to properly face straight forward in my previous attempts, and I have learned from that mistake).
Because of so many things to do to get it set up and then experimenting further, I felt that I could blow any other opportunities if it didn't work out.
I also noticed that the sun seemed to be finally getting brighter all of a sudden as well, with shadows that were faint to nonexistent most of the day beginning to get stronger! So, I finally made the decision to have the on-camera breathing hose sink, hoping that the mud would be thick enough to have some really good farting bubbles!
I stripped and changed into my junk shorts, once again using an orange plastic string to secure it around my waist. I took my breathing hose (a black 6-foot shop vac hose) to the edge of the pond, and cleaned off the end I was going to put in my mouth, having to wipe it dry with my junk shorts. I blew through it, hoping nothing was living in it (don't want any spiders running into my mouth
).
Then, I had to decide where I wanted to have my sink, since I wanted to choose a nice thick spot.
The very center, where I had sunk before, had been softened quite a bit, but I remembered that some places off to the sides were thicker. So I decided on a spot just east of the center, where I seemed to remember it being thicker. The west side was another thick spot, but I felt it wasn't wide enough.
I retrieved the pole I had selected for the camera, and then pushed it through the floating vegetation in the western portion of the south edge of the bog. I wanted to have it directly in front of the spot, but because of the shadow of the stick, I had to have it further to the west. I then took the camera, set it to 16:9 to make its regular view match the that of the video, screwed it onto the Gorillapod, and then wrapped the Gorillapod's tentacles around the stick. I started fiddling around, making adjustments to try and properly frame the location, but the smoothed-out mud's features were very hard to make out on the camera, and after a bit of fiddling around, I suddenly realized that the spot would be much easier to frame once the breathing hose was in place!
So, I grabbed the breathing hose and sunk part of it in the mud to hide it from the camera, smoothing over the surface, with my mouth end sticking out where I wanted to sink, and the back end exiting the muck onto the grass on the south side. However, since the mat of grass had some water on it, I was concerned that water might get into the hose while I was breathing through it!
So, I went back to my sticks, grabbed a bunch of short ones, and laid them on top of the grass in a raft formation for the end of the hose to lay on. Once that end of the hose was finally high and dry, I was able to get the camera properly set up, with the mouth end of the breathing hose in the lower center of the frame. I zoomed in a bit, for a rough estimate. I then returned to my things, put on my swim cap, inside out again to have the solid fluorescent green instead of the fluorescent green dot pattern shrinking into a white top, making certain that I had as much hair inside it as I could, and that it had completely covered my ears. I then put my sunglasses back on, returned to the camera, and made some final adjustments to get the area perfectly framed, and zoomed in a bit. I then pressed the record button, headed back to my things, removed my sunglasses, and put on my swim goggles, making certain that they were mounted properly. I headed over to the north side, and was finally ready to get sucked under the thick, doughy quagmire for an extended period of time, with a constant stream of farting bubbles at the surface!
I then made the fateful leap, landing right in front of the breathing hose, the bog farting as it gulped me down to my waist!
I began to struggle, reaching all around me, pushing my hands and arms under again and again, mushing up the surface of the farting mire around me. Once the doughy surface rose high enough up to my face, I put the end of the hose into my mouth, and continued to sink myself down deeper, pulling the end of the hose under the sucking mire with my mouth and hand(s). I continued to struggle myself down deeper, the mire rising up over my swim goggles, with the light turning red and then black, as the voracious ooze continued to suck my head under! Because of neck issues, I had to keep my head facing forward, and not up, so I adjusted my posture to make myself face more forward. I was inhaling through the hose in my mouth, and exhaling through my nose, the escaping air farting around my head to the surface. As I kept on sinking deeper, I wondered if the top of my head was still exposed, so I reached up out of the mud and felt the top, finding there was only mud, meaning that my head was now completely swallowed by the hungry muck!
With my hands below the surface, there was no sign of me left, except for the farting bubbles! I continued to sink deeper, with my exhaled air first making more of a steady whooshing sound. But, as I got deeper, it was also making a phlup, phlup, phlup sound. It felt so wonderful to be totally encompassed by the thick, suffocating mire, while still being able to breathe!
Of course, it was a bit more exercise breathing, but I also noticed that shorter breaths had less exertion. I raised my hands above the mud, suddenly feeling a sense of comfort, and churned the surface, and then slowly retracted my hands back down into the mud, giving the appearance of sinking deeper. I also moved my arms and body beneath the surface, to make the bog move like it was alive! Getting used to breathing under the mud, I worked myself down even deeper and deeper, pulling the hose down with me, noticing that only my hands and a small part of my forearms could break the surface of the doughy, suffocating ooze! My head must have been several inches below the surface of the gulping mire!
I struggled with my hands churning the mud, and then slowly retracted them back down, slowly vanishing into the slimy ooze!
I loved the sound of the bog passing gas up to the surface from my escaping breath, with slower shorter exhales being more "phlup, phlup, phlup", while longer, deeper exhales being more of a whispering "inflating balloon whoooooo" sound, completely different sounds from what you hear outside the bog! I was in a totally different world!
If it wasn't for the breathing hose, I wouldn't have been able to survive being sucked down so deep under the suffocating mire for so long!
I thought about sinking myself deeper yet, since there was no solid bottom I could feel, but decided I was deep enough. I just lingered there, inhaling through the hose and exhaling through my nose. But, some of the thick mire managed to ooze between the top of the hose and my upper lip, getting into my mouth, but I managed to keep it mostly in front of my upper teeth, but some got past it. After a while, I began to feel some phlegm building up in my throat that I had to constantly clear away, which was getting worse, and that mud that had gotten into my mouth was also a bit annoying. So, I finally decided to call it quits, and make the hungry bog regurgitate its meal!
Bending each leg, I would work one foot up through the thick mire, and then the other foot, and then work myself straight, pushing the hose up with me as I went. It got progressively easier to breathe as I wormed my way up through the mud closer to the surface, with my exhaled air becoming a steady "whooooo" as I got even closer. Finally, my head broke the surface, with light starting to filter through my boggy goggles (boggles)! I wiped some mud from the top of my head, and rose higher. I removed the hose from my mouth, lifted it out of the mud and moved it aside, while I spat out the mud that had oozed into my mouth. I rested briefly, before working myself up higher and wiping the layer of doughy slime from my head, and then worked myself up higher, pulling the breathing hose out of the mud and tossing it to my left. I continued to wipe the mud off my body, and then worked myself up higher. I kept on wiping mud off my goggles, trying to get a clearer view. Once I was high enough, I then slowly struggled my way back to the north side, smoothing out the surface a little bit as I went, exiting and pushing the rest of the mud from my body back into the bog. As I was moving away from the bog, I heard some splashing coming from the pond, and wondered what it was.
Then, when I headed to the pond, I discovered it was a duck! I washed off my hands, and headed to my camera to stop the recording. However, because my vision was so blurry, especially through the mud-smeared goggles, I couldn't tell if I had pressed the button hard enough to stop the recording.
So, I pressed it a few more times, before turning the camera off, knowing that there would be a few extra tiny videos that I would have to delete afterwards.
With the camera off, I was now ready to get back into the mire, and have a more personal sink!
I was glad that my swim goggles were still secured on my eyes, meaning that I could still do some more submersions, if I wanted to. Walking around to the south side, I jumped in, facing northward this time, roughly in the same place I had the breathing hose sink, and started to struggle vigorously, sinking deeper and deeper into the voracious quagmire, this time without any breathing hose to keep me from suffocating! With my struggling, I allowed the treacherously hungry muck to suck me down to the point where it was frequently rising up over my mouth, forcing me to constantly fight for breath!
I wanted this to be a stimulating struggle, and had forgotten to remove my junk shorts, but I couldn't untie the string in the mud. So, I pulled the front of the shorts downward, slightly off the string, to expose things a bit underneath to the mire deeper down.
I struggled for a long time, the surface in front of me rising and falling, undulating, pulsating, like it was alive, as it tried to suffocate me, only for me to fight myself high enough to get another breath before it sucked over and into my mouth again! I briefly sunk down deep enough for the muck to suck over my goggles, before quickly fighting my way back up to breath again!
Heart pounding, constantly gasping for breath and spitting out mud that was invading my mouth, struggling right on the edge (slightly higher, and I could breathe easily, and slightly deeper, I could suffocate), was exhilarating, exciting, a real workout!
But, unfortunately, I couldn't get full stimulation due to the coolness of both my body and the bog. So, I worked myself out of the mire, once again lifting my buttocks above the mud before sitting back on the grass on the north side, wiping the mud off my body into the bog, and smoothing out the surface. Then, I finally untied the string from around my junk shorts, and removed my junk shorts. I stuffed the string inside a pocket in the mucky junk shorts so as not to lose it, and plopped it down in the grass a few feet north of the bog.
The sun was much stronger and hotter, which really made this sinking session much more enjoyable!
I then headed to the west side where I then crawled over top of the thick, warm, solar-heated surface of the mire there, facing southward, and then began to struggle on my chest, the thick doughy mire wrapping itself around my bottom and sides like a warm, wet quilt! I pushed down with my arms, which got swallowed straight down by the voracious ooze! I could feel it sucking over my legs, my buttocks, and starting to swallow the sides of my back, while the undulating surface of the suffocating mire in front of me rose up to my head, sucking my face into it, trying to smother me in its embrace!
I had to constantly "fight" to keep my mouth above the suffocating surface, before it got sucked under again, trying to swallow my face!
The struggling, the feel of it sucking my body into it, the warmth of the surface from the sun, the mire farting out swamp gas and trying to suffocate me, brought my stimulation to the exploding point!
Now, all finished for the day, I exited the mire on the west side, once again raising my rear above the mud before pulling myself backwards onto the grass. I wiped the mud off my body into the bog, and smoothed out the surface. I made certain it was all smooth, and then headed to the pond to clean up, this time heading a little further into the water. Standing in the soft, muddy bottom, I allowed myself to sink down deep enough into the bottom for the water to be up to my chest, where I swished away the sediment-filled water from my disturbance, to replace it with clear water. I took deep breaths and immersed my head under the water, cleaning away the gooey muck. Once I had enough cleaned, I removed my swim goggles, and cleaned them a bit more, before then exiting the pond, holding them up above the water, and then hanging them on an alder branch to dry. I returned to the pond, and cleaned my face better, and then removed the swim cap, and cleaned it better, and then exited the pond, holding it above the water, and hanging it on another alder branch. I then returned to the pond to finish cleaning up, making certain my head was clean, as well as my arms and front, and using "Nature's scrub-brush" to unstick the muddy film on my back, and then splashing water on it to rinse away all remaining loose sediment. As I worked my way down to my lower body, I noticed a black blob still on my right thigh. I tried washing it off, only to discover it was a leech!
It was the first one to attach to me in over a year (or so)! I scraped it off with my fingernail, and tossed it away into the pond. Sure enough, some blood was oozing from where it had been attached, a spot which I had to refrain from rubbing or scratching, otherwise it would swell up and start to itch!
I cleaned my string, junk shorts and breathing hose, having to use the junk shorts to clean the mud out of the grooves of the hose around the side I put into my mouth. I also rinsed water through the inside of the hose as well. I hung the string and junk shorts in some alders, and put the breathing hose away in its hiding spot. I had trouble keeping the swim cap on the alder branch, because it kept on falling off.
I unwrapped the Gorillapod's tentacles from the stick, and unscrewed the camera from it, and put them back with my things. I returned my camera back to its normal aspect ratio, and was going to take some photos of the bog, when I realized that the smoothed out surface looked no different from earlier, when I took photos. So, I proceeded to take all the sticks/poles, and put them back around the bog to cage it in again.
I got dressed, and took a quick look at parts of the video I took, noticing the awkward angle it was at due to me trying to avoid the stick's and camera's shadow. I also noticed that when I was reaching out and mushing up the mud around me, part of my arms and hands were out of the frame, meaning that I had zoomed in too much! I also noticed how different the farting bubbles sounded, compared to how they sounded under the surface. I swapped memory cards, and then proceeded to put my things together, when I realized I forgot to take one final photo of the caged-in bog. So, I swapped the memory cards again, and took one last photo of the bog with the sticks/poles (from dead alders) around it:
2023 08 16 2P Crescent.jpg
I then swapped memory cards again, and finished packing everything up, putting the Gorillapod, swim goggles, and swim cap back into their respective packages. I returned to my bike, and put everything away in the saddle bags. When I was walking my bike over the fallen trees, I stepped on the last one to push it down so I could move my bike over top of it more easily, but midway, it sprung back up into my bike, with a metallic clang!
After getting my bike back onto the sideroad, I did a quick inspection to make certain it was okay, and it seemed all right.
I headed back down, noticing that the main road indeed seemed to be not as full of loose gravel as last time, and I snacked on the Sweet & Salty almond granola/nut bar on the way. Once again, I put the strap of the camera case over my shoulder, but it kept slipping off. Then, I realized the strap was doubled, so I pulled out one single part, which made it long enough to go on the opposite shoulder from the side with the camera, and the camera no longer slipped off, although I was getting a little sore between the bottom of the left side of my neck and the top of my shoulder. Because I felt more confident with my knees, I went slightly faster, but still cautious not to over-stress my knees. When I started the main downhill, I was disappointed that it too, was now full of loose gravel!
Looks like they graded it as well, so there was no smooth going left until pavement!
Once I descended far enough into the valley, I was in cell range, and phoned home for my dad to meet me. Then, I continued to coast down the road with loose gravel, looking forward to getting to the pavement. But then, something didn't feel right!
I wasn't slowing down as much as I should each time I put on the brakes!
Then, it got really scary when I put my brakes on hard, and I started to go even faster!
I had to quickly make a hard left turn across the road to come to a stop! I then tried going slowly, only to have to put my feet on the ground each time I couldn't stop with the brakes! It was a good thing it didn't happen up in the mountains!
I then started to walk my bike down the hill, and a gentleman on his way up in a truck asked if I needed assistance, and I told him that I was okay, because my dad was going to pick me up. I then continued on, and tried coasting slowly, but had to use my feet to stop each time my brakes didn't want to work. I finally got off my bike, rummaged through a side pocket in my saddlebag, pulled out a (hex/Allen) (key/wrench), and made an adjustment to the fixed rear brake pad (perhaps it got out of adjustment from vibrations, or the the fallen tree springing up did something
) on the back wheel. After that, things worked again
, although I never made any adjustments to the front one. Once again, I wasn't as far down the road in the valley bottom as I normally would be before my dad picked me up. The valley was still full of thick smoke, with an orange sun. That evening, when I watched the recording of the news, during the weather, they showed an animated visible satellite loop to show the smoke, and right around 3 pm, was when a hole in the smoke moved right across where I was in the mountains!
It was my best outing in two years!
I was happy to see no sign of any cattle, although the grass looked like animals had trampled paths through the area, and there was one cow pie in the clearing north of the pond, which was not too fresh, since it had the bleached, dried, papery coating. I had some slight leg cramps, but they never got bad, and dissipated. I had my first leech bite in years. I was glad that I chose to have the breathing hose sink, on camera, and wished that I could have spent more time under there! After I had finished, knowing that I was able to breathe without difficulty when the top of my head was several inches below the surface, I then wished I could have went deeper, to see if I could reach the magic point where I would reach up and there would be nothing but soft mud above my fingertips, with nothing but more soft mud beneath my feet, without having any problems breathing, or at least see how close I could get to that point before I had to stop sinking myself deeper!
Next time, it will be thicker, with more pressure on my chest at any given depth.
I also wished I could have done some of that struggling for breath after I had surfaced from the breathing hose sink, since I believe it would have looked interesting and dramatic on video. But, at least I did spend a fair bit of time under the mire, and the mud seemed less chilly, and the sun coming out made a difference as well!
If only the sun had been out since the beginning of the day! I had thought for certain that our heat wave would allow for more comfortable, chill-free conditions earlier in the day for a change, but the annoying smoke ruined all that!
When I left the area, I noticed that I felt as if every breath I took filled my lungs with more oxygen than ever!
It was as if breathing through the hose in my mouth and exhaling through my nose under the mud caused my respiratory system to feel stronger, more refreshed!
There were a few biting flies, but it wasn't too bad, but I would be occasionally bothered by the odd bald-faced hornet, which would buzz around me.
I can't remember exactly where we got to that day in Vernon, but it was in the mid 30's˚C (mid 90's˚F), with it hitting 37.7˚C (99.9˚F) the day before, and 38.1˚C (100.6˚F) the day after, when I noticed that the smoke seemed to be not as bad, and I could even see a cumulus cloud to the south of us through the haze! Then, I took a closer look at that cloud, and the billowing top extended downward on the west side of it down to the ground behind the hills, meaning it was a
Pyro-cumulus cloud, a cloud that forms from forest fires!
Sure enough, when I watched the news, it was from the McDougall Creek wildfire near West Kelowna, which was flaring up!
Then, after that, the cold front moved through, kicking up gusty winds that caused wildfires to explode all over the place in southern BC!
The McDougall Creek wildfire destroyed many homes/structures in West Kelowna, and the gusty winds blew embers across Okanagan Lake to start new fires in North Kelowna and Lake Country, causing the UBC campus to cancel all exams, and to evacuate (it was then being used as a staging area for over 500 firefighters). The Kelowna International airport closed down to free up airspace for firefighters, but as of Sunday Aug 20'th, they started opening for limited flights in the evenings, when all firefighting aircraft was grounded for the night. The fires around Adams Lake, which have been a major source of smoke in my area, surged southward 21 kilometers into parts of the western Shuswap, destroying homes/structures in some communities there! Thankfully, the weather behind the cold front cooled down, winds died down, relative humidity rose, and there has been scattered thunderstorms moving through. I hoped lightning wouldn't start more fires, although a new fire started way up in the mountains east of Armstrong, a community that is to the north of us, but never became a problem.
I was concerned about all the stress my neck was under from my head being engulfed by thick mud, but fortunately, things seem to have been stable, with some slight sensitivity on occasion, but still lots of clicking. However, my sides of my neck were sore for a day afterwards, before feeling better, the way it should be
, not something that gets progressively worse over 5 days before starting to ease!
This time I never checked out the south end of the pond, to see how much more treacherous muck was exposed there, or took any photos of the other patches of exposed mud there, except for the stream leaving the ring bog pond, which was handy, since I was passing by it anyways. I wanted to focus on my main bog, and was happy with the experience!
Looking at my camera recordings, there were 3 videos made that day - one 22m 51s, one 4s, and one 2s. So, I deleted the 4s and 2s ones, since they were just me pressing the record button multiple times to make certain the main video recording was stopped and saved. Upon viewing the main video on computer, even though it was zoomed in too closely to capture all of my arms and hands when they were extended out and churning the mire, it gave a really really great detailed closeup view of the heaving, pulsating, doughy mire that surrounded and swallowed me, and especially the farting bubbles of my escaping breath that the bog continuously belched out!
I am eagerly awaiting my next opportunity, which will probably be around Monday, August 28'th, which is when the weather peaks before another cold front hits the following day, but forecasts can change, so things are still up in the air, and I need to take a closer look at my bike to see if it needs further maintenance.
My next adventure can't come soon enough, because after being sucked beneath the heaving, pulsating surface with only a breathing hose to keep me alive, with the sensations of the enveloping muck hugging my entire body, and the underbog sounds of the thick mire passing the gas from my escaping breath up to the surface to be farted out, I am experiencing bog withdrawal, and wish I could have repeated this EVERY day!
I finally got a haircut, and so the swim cap will fit better! Can't wait!
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, but still warming up. So, deciding not to get too chilled early in the day, I chose not to have a submergence sink first thing. Instead, I decided to have a personal sink to my chest, followed by mushing up the surface of the mud, to remove the stiffer surface skin in order to keep it soft and at maximum quaking action!