BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 11/5/'23!

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Boggy Man
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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 9/22/'20!

Postby Boggy Man » Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:39 am

My September 9'th, 2020 Adventure, Part 5 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

More photos of the exposed mud north of the pond:

2020 09 09 3U Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3V Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3W Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3X Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3Y Crescent.jpg

Next, I just *HAD* to check out the depth of the mud there! :) I picked out a dead alder just north of the meadow, which I broke off, and broke off the side branches and smaller top part, leaving me with a stick that was around 5 feet high. I then started to walk around, probing the mud with the stick. The first spot, on the west side of the northernmost patch of mire, the stick went down roughly chest deep, although I could have pushed it down further if I had pushed harder. Further out eastward in that same patch, it only penetrated around a foot before hitting the sandy gravelly "bottom" (actually it is a thick layer of sand/gravel on top of more mud beneath). I probed other spots, and found some to be shallow, hitting more gravel, and others just to the sides pushing the stick 4 to 5 feet deep without really hitting a bottom! :D I couldn't really identify my first sinking spot for sure, because things changed so much. :? But, it looked like a new sinking area had just opened to me! :D I knew that later on in the afternoon, I would *HAVE* to return and test it out with my body! :mrgreen:

To Be Continued...
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I sink, therefore I WAM!!!!

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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 9/22/'20!

Postby Boggy Man » Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:40 am

My September 9'th, 2020 Adventure, Part 6 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

I headed back to my sinking spot, with the stick still in hand to use as part of my "cage", setting it down by my path to my sinking spot. I put my camera away, and began to prepare for my first sink! Once again, I had to carefully peel apart my folded swim cap, which kept on gluing itself together in between outings, and managed to get it over my hair and ears without making its tear any worse. I put on my swim goggles, and then grabbed my breathing tube, which I planned on using for the first time this year, initially blowing some air out of it and sucking it in to make certain there were no obstructions. I also shook it a bit as well. I then laid it down on the ground west of the patch of mud I was going to step into, trying to make certain it was away from any water. I was now ready to feed myself to the hungry patch of "bottomless" quagmire, exposed on the north side of my treacherous bog! :D

Because my patch of mud was so close to the water covering the middle, instead of jumping in, I carefully lowered myself into it, facing south, the mire quickly rising to my chest, and bubbling out a few farts. As I struggled, slowly sinking deeper, I had to keep my arms and hands raised up in front of me to block the lower blinding September sun from my eyes! :x As the mire slowly crept higher up my body, I realized that my breathing hose was getting out of reach, forcing me to strrrrrrreeeeeeeeetch to my right in order to just barely reach it, swing it into a good position with the "mouthpiece" end closer to me, and then resume my sink. The slimy shiny undulating surface bubbled and farted periodically, as it rose over my shoulders, my upper arms resting on the surface for a while until they too began to get swallowed by the mire. I did catch a whiff of the gassy odor of one of the swamp farts, which added to the experience! I had to continue keeping my hands up to block out the sun from my eyes, the jellylike surface of the hungry muck rising up my neck and my chin, and then up to my mouth, slowly covering it, forcing me to lift my head slightly to inhale through my mouth, and face forward to exhale between my mouth and the jellylike muck, my hands still above my head. I continued to struggle, the slimy ooze slowly rising ever higher, forcing me to tilt my head ever higher to keep my mouth free of the sucking muck, occasionally digging some away from my mouth.

Finally, I was at the point where I had to use the breathing hose. So, I grabbed it, wiped away some of the mud from its end, cleared mud away from my mouth, stuck the end of the hose into my mouth, and bit down slightly, creating a nice seal around it with my lips. I was then free to struggle and let the mire suck me down deeper, watching the light over my head diminish in a slowly shrinking hole, which finally closed completely, encasing me in a soft, cool, wet darkness! :D I inhaled through the hose in my mouth, and exhaled through my nose, the air not really bubbling to the surface, but seemed more like steady hissing through a conduit through the mud due to my head's proximity to the surface. When I moved my head to face forward under the suffocating muck, the top of my head may have breached the surface, but some more struggling made me sink slightly deeper. With my arms and hands pulled under and surrounded by the enveloping softness, it felt quite wonderful being totally encompassed by the soft suffocating earth! :D I reached up to feel the surface of the mud over my head, and it felt like a level surface, which suggested that I was indeed totally submerged, although it felt like there might have been only a thin skin of mud over the top of my head. :? When I struggled and moved around, I could feel the surrounding enveloping mire swaying with me, and then against me if I changed or stopped the rhythm, which felt quite amazing! :D But, I had to limit the amount of horizontal movements, because I didn't want to risk hurting my neck. :?

Because I was so close to the surface, it was easy to breathe, with little pressure on my chest. Normally, I would submerge myself deeper and the pressure on my chest would make breathing a bit more work, especially forcing air out my nose through the mire, forcing me to pace my breathing, preventing me from doing anything to increase my respiration rate. But the fact that I could exhale so freely through my nose allowed me to be able to struggle beneath the surface without losing my breath! :D So, with it easy to breathe at that depth (in through the hose in my mouth and out through my nose), I struggled vigorously, and wound up having a rather "stimulating" ;) experience beneath the surface of the voracious quagmire :D , immediately followed by a feeling like my body temperature had suddenly dropped, something that I often found rather annoying whenever it happened! :x

I lingered and struggled a bit, enjoying the feel of the mire, but couldn't get rid of the chilled feeling. The mud around my head was also not that warm either, and was starting to give me a headache! :x If I had waited a day or so, when the hot weather returned, it might have made a difference, but I didn't want to chance it with Hunting Season! :? So, I enjoyed my underbog experience the best I could during what was a transitional day between cooler weather and hotter weather. I noticed that under the bog, it wasn't total darkness, but instead there was a ring of red around my visual field. I wasn't certain if it was because I was close enough to the surface for some light to leak in and light up the sides of my swim goggles, or if the pressure of the mud against my swim goggles against my eyes was causing something that could affect my eyesight (I was diagnosed with glaucoma which is not getting worse thanks to Latanoprost eyedrops administered every night)! :shock: But, I noticed when I lowered my head, the redness vanished, so perhaps I was close enough to the surface for some light to find a conduit down to my goggles. :? Perhaps my exhaled air created a hole that light could penetrate, or it went through my swim cap to my goggles. :? But, anyways, I just lingered there for a few moments more before finally working myself back up to the surface, where I tossed the hose aside and wiped the mud from my goggles to see things again. I wet my hands in the shallow water over a foot away in front (south) of me to help clear even more mud off my goggles to see things better, and then lifted myself onto the grass on the north side, wiping mud off my body and into the bog. When I had resurfaced, I heard the sound of some kind of engine running for a moment :shock: , but with the swimming cap over my ears muffling the sounds, I couldn't tell if it was from an aircraft, a truck, an atv, or a motorbike. :? But, the sound disappeared quickly, and all was silent again. :)

I then headed to the pond, where the sun was starting to warm up the water, but the freshly warmed layer of water was only around an inch deep, with colder water underneath! I managed to get my head cleaned, rather uncomfortably (if it wasn't for the swim cap, I probably wouldn't have been able to get my head muddy in the first place), and then laid back on the grass that sunk under the water from my weight, and scrubbed my back against it to remove the mud from my back (some of it was stuck as a layer of brown scum on my skin), and did the same for my front, having to endure the cold water. I cleaned myself over and over again, until I was certain I was clean, removing my swim goggles and cleaning them and my face more, and then my swim cap, cleaning it, as well as the fringes of my hair just in case any mud got on it or my ears (once again the swim cap kept it out of my ears). Cleaning myself lower down was easier, and then I air-dried, with me feeling chilled for a long time afterwards. I took a photo of my bog after my submergence sink, thinking that some newly exposed mud towards the center was probably from my sinking shifting the mud around, since there was now more water on top of the part just on the south side of where I had just sunk:

2020 09 09 3Z Crescent.jpg

I got dressed, and even put on a thin sweater to help warm myself up, but stayed in bare feet. After having one breathing hose sink that was not on camera, I wanted to have another, this time on camera, in the exposed mud on the west side of the bog. But that would be later on, once I warmed up.

While waiting to warm up, I decided to head over to the south end of the pond, and the smaller pond with the shallow clay mud on its northwest corner, to see what it looked like with the lower water levels. When I got to the south side of my pond, I tried to pick out the location of the "treacherous shoreline" that was exposed a few years ago, but now still submerged, finding that it was difficult to identify any "landmarks" in the vegetation pattern, which was constantly changing. :? But, where the south end of the pond narrowed and disappeared into the grassy meadow, I noticed that there was some mud exposed among the grass there, and a stretch of mud with yellow waterlilies along the boggy "creek" (more like a lower open spot that stretched southward and vanished into sedge grass further south) that separated the pond from the tinier pond on the south end of the clearing (they used to be all one larger pond long ago, also merged with the one to the east, perhaps being more of a lake). If I remembered correctly from years ago, there were possibly logs submerged under the stretch of mud with the yellow waterlilies in that general area. :? I crossed over to the other (east) side just to the south where it was all sedge grass, and looked around at any open patches of shallow water or mud, trying to figure out where my second sinking spot from years ago was. I thought I had found the area when I saw an open round area with some weeds covered in shallow water, but I remembered it was close to a fallen log. I walked around a little bit more, and found the barely noticeable fallen log further to the south, and guessed that my old second sinking spot was one of the open patches to the south of it (couldn't really remember which side of the log it was on). :? In that location, some of the carpet of grass died out, leaving clumps of grass with mud/water in between, making it difficult to locate any round patches of low ground, much like with my inability to locate my first sinking spot on the north side of the main pond. :? I crossed over to the west side again, and headed over to the northwest corner of the tiny pond to see what the shallow clay area looked like. It was a bit flattened, and more mud was exposed. I wished I had my camera on me at this time, so I could have taken pictures. I then headed northward, back to my current active (third) sinking spot.

I was starting to feel a little bit warmer, warm enough to sink a bit, but still not quite warm enough to submerge. :? So, knowing that it might cost me the opportunity to have the on-camera breathing hose sink in my main bog, I decided to satisfy my curiosity and try out the mud exposed on the north end of the pond! :D I got undressed, and because I wasn't going to submerge, I kept my glasses on. When I reached the north end, I started at the northernmost part of the mud, finding my legs went down on the western part, but I didn't bother sinking too much there. In the middle, just like I had remembered, it was all gravel or sand with around a foot of loose muck on top. I walked around the center stream part and the sides, finding it all sandy around a foot below the loose muck in the center, but all muck with no bottom to the west, with me sinking down to the top of my legs with more soft mud below, before stopping my sink and moving on, because I still felt a bit on the cool side, and wasn't ready to sink too deep yet. While it was a layer of sand under the loose muck in the stream area, to the sides it was leg-swallowing stiffer but soft muck of unknown depth with a thin fragile layer of decayed plants in top, underneath the looser slurry.

Finally, while I was checking out the mud on the east side, I stopped at a wider spot, and when my feet plunged into the stiffer mud beneath the few inches of looser muck, I just couldn't resist staying there, and continuing to sink! :mrgreen: It slowly rose over my legs, and up my waist, so thick that my legs could only move up and down, but not horizontally! I reached down into the stiffer muck with my hands, and worked it and mixed it into the looser layer on top, the mud going from being stiff to nice and sticky and gooey and doughlike! :D I continuously worked my feet down deeper and deeper, and kept on mushing up the stiff mud around me into a sticky goo, the mud continuing to fart swamp gas around me as I disturbed it. The doughy surface slowly rose up my chest, the stiffer stuff lower down rising over my crotch, with me mushing it up into more sticky quagmire! I would lift my arms up, thickly coated with the thick goo, and then wipe the mud off, or just lower my arms back in again, churning the mud and mixing it all around. To avoid injuring my knees, I had to be very careful how I struggled, because of the stiffer unworked muck deeper down locking my legs in place horizontally, with no horizontal movements possible, only vertical!

Because I had easy access to nice thick gooey mud, the thought crossed my mind that I had a new source of mud to transport to my main sinking area to build it up high enough to be above the water earlier in the season! :D But, I found that this mud was full of fragments of decaying sticks, something I didn't really want to add to my main sinking spot. :? I preferred it to be more pure mud.

I continued mushing up the stiffer muck lower down and mixing it into the stuff at the surface, and slowly sunk deeper, working each of my feet down a little more at a time, until I was just below my nipples. Then, I began to struggle vigorously until I once again had a "stimulating release"! ;) After that, I lingered for a while, loving the feel of the mud surrounding much of my body, knowing that this day was my last day of sinking this year, and I wanted to make the best of what I had! :D

Finally, I began to slowly work my legs up, one, and then the other, back and forth, wiggling my feet up through the thick muck a little bit at a time, taking care not to stress my knees in the process. I tried to keep pointing my feet forward, not down, to avoid the risk of painful calf cramps. I pushed down on some of the nearby tufts of grasses to help extract myself faster from the doughy morass that was gooey and sticky on top, and stiffer deeper down. Upon extracting my legs, one sunk back down into the stiff mud just behind (west) of where I had sunk, which I had to extract again. I smoothed out the surface and then headed a little bit southward along the eastern shore of the pond, to find a good cleanup spot there, finding more mud exposed between the clumps of grass. Closer to the pond, I encountered more floating vegetation (mostly rushes), which I was able to sit down on, with the water flooding over it from my weight until it was almost chest high sitting down. I began to clean myself off, finding that the water wasn't as cold as on the west side near my main sinking area (or perhaps the sun had warmed the water further since then). Once I had myself cleaned off, I headed back to my main sinking spot, midways down on the western shore.

It was now getting a little late, making me doubt whether I could have any on-camera hose sinks, and I was still feeling too chilled to do any submergences yet. :? On top of that, when I got back to my sinking spot, I was disappointed to see that the shadows from coniferous trees in the forest to the west were already cast over top of the bog, taking it out of the warm sun! :x But, I noticed something else! :shock: The center of the bog was now sticking up out of the water, as well as more of the sides! :) The pool of water on top of the mud was shrinking noticeably! :D But, it was too late, since I felt that I had no time to do any more sinks once I warmed up. :( I wanted to take another photo of my bog with the newer parts exposed, but wanted to have the sun shining on it, so while I waited for one tree's shadow to pass by, I grabbed my camera and headed to the south end of the pond and took a photo of the stretch of mud exposed there, as well as the mud with the clay on the northwest corner of the tinier pond on the far south end (no need for any horizontal mudplay there this time thanks to the thick deeper muck exposed on the north end of the main pond):

2020 09 09 3ZA Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3ZB Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3ZC Crescent.jpg

I then returned to my main bog, finding that it was almost clear of the shadow of one tree, only to have the shadow of another tree start to move onto it, leaving only a narrow strip of sun on it. I took a photo of my bog with the lower water levels, and missing a sedge grass plant that was in the back left of the bog, which I had removed since my last photo of the bog:

2020 09 09 3ZD Crescent.jpg

To Be Concluded...
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I sink, therefore I WAM!!!!

(((ioi)))

-The Boggy Man

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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 9/22/'20!

Postby Boggy Man » Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:40 am

My September 9'th, 2020 Adventure, Part 7, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

I then surrounded the bog, as well as the fragile quaking grass on the south side, with sticks again, having to replace some sticks that broke on me, and also utilizing the stick I had used for probing the mud on the north end, as well as taking new sticks from more dead alders in the area to complete my "cage". I then took some last photos of the now totally shaded mud, including closeups:

2020 09 09 3ZE Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3ZF Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3ZG Crescent.jpg

2020 09 09 3ZH Crescent.jpg

I got fully dressed, switched memory cards in my camera, gathered my things, and headed back to my bike, where I loaded up my saddlebags, and started headed back around 5:30 pm, half an hour later than I had planned, realizing that I had forgotten to take a photo of the place on the north end where I had my final sink of the year, since I passed by the area on the way to my bike! :x But, I would have had to swap memory cards again, for the photo and back again, costing me time, and I wasn't certain how much daylight I would be have by the time I got back to the valley bottom. :? Along the way back, I planned on not stopping to snack on my Sweet'n Salty bars to save time (would snack later in my brother's truck), but wound up instead stopping several times to pick Shaggy Mane mushrooms on the side of the road for my mom to cook. I had sent a text to my brother just before I broke out into the clearing and farmland closer to the valley bottom, but he never saw my text until around 20 minutes later, and needed time to get ready to pick me up as well. So while I made it to the valley bottom just before the sun set, by the time he got me home, it was getting dark already. My mom cleaned and cooked up the Shaggy Mane mushrooms, and the following day, we enjoyed it as part of our lunch.

It was not quite the day I had hoped for, with it being a bit cooler than I wanted, resulting in me wasting a lot of time waiting for things to warm up for my first sink, and then waiting forever for my body to warm back up so I could have another sink. That day, we had an official high of 26.9˚C (80.4˚F), which meant that in the mountains, it would have peaked at around 20˚C (68˚F) to 22˚C (72˚F). I had thought about going before the cool-down, since the weather had been so steadily warm during the latter part of the previous week. :? But, if I had, the mud would have been covered with even more water! :x It took just a couple of days of cooler weather for things to lose their heat - the mud near the surface (but deeper down, the mud had slowly accumulated some "warmth" over the season to reduce its chill), and the water lower down! :x If I had gone a day or two later, it would have been much better, with Saturday, September 12'th being the best day, with the water likely all gone from the surface of my sinking spot! The smoke from wildfires to the south then moved in, blocking the sun on Sunday, keeping temperatures in the low 20's (low 70's) instead of the low 30's (mid to high 80's)! :x But, the first weekend of Hunting Season during the days of the COVID-19 stay-cation, made it too risky. :? The temperatures varied from day to day, with some days actually getting a little warmer. A week after my adventure, the bog exposure conditions would have been even better, with the mountain temperatures perhaps being similar to the valley bottom temperatures due to the smoke, in the mid-20's (high 70's). But, thanks to Hunting Season, as well as the smoke suppressing the daytime heating, which could prevent cleanup water from warming up at all, I had to let the opportunity pass. :( The smoke stuck around for around a week before finally clearing out, taking the warm temperatures in the higher elevations with it. :(

I really wished that I had more time to do things. I was disappointed that I couldn't make a video this time, and had wanted to have more sinks. But, I did take a lot of photos of mud patches (this IS posted in the Photos section after all). :) I would have loved to have worked the mud more on the north side of the pond, to create a larger pit of thick doughy quagmire, but it wouldn't have been quite as "treacherous" :twisted: as my main sinking spot, due to the stiffer unworked "bottom" it would have, where I couldn't work it further. But, perhaps once the stuff on top was loosened, then when it flooded from the fall rains and spring runoff, the stuff that was worked would have loosened further, just like in my main bog, with the stuff deeper down loosening on its own. :? Also, perhaps if I had checked the area out more, I might have found a spot with thick muck that was free of sticks, that could be transported to my main sinking spot to raise it above the water! :roll: But, the lengthy trips back and forth would be tiresome, with progress slow. :? I never got to try out the exposed mud on the south end of the pond, but then, as I mentioned earlier, I remembered one or more logs laying beneath the surface there, unless it was in a slightly different spot. :? I also wished that I could have pushed under the clumps of sod and stuff sticking out of the center of my bog so that it would be bare on top. But then, it would likely rise back up again when the bog is seasonally flooded and naturally loosened, something that happens every year. :?

But, even though things didn't go as I had hoped, it was still quite an enjoyable day, with some wonderful mudplay! :D I discovered that new potential spots have opened up on the north end, which also don't get shaded in the late afternoon in late summer like my main bog does! :D I will have to keep an eye on that area next year, throughout the season. :) During the day, I also noticed that something was moving through the pond, with yellow waterlily leaves moving in succession in a line from northeast to southwest. I couldn't see any ducks, so perhaps it might have been the beaver. :? I was glad that during one of my sinks (can't remember which, perhaps the first), I only encountered very mild beginnings of a leg cramp, which luckily then quickly vanished. :)

Aside from the COVID-19 crisis, it has been a very poor year, due to cooler wet weather in all of June and the first half of July, with summer heat starting later than normal this year, in late July. That kept water levels from dropping until late July, and by the time it got low enough to keep my mud exposed, Hunting Season began and Sinking Season ended. :( We also had a late start to spring, which brought about delayed melting, which meant that runoff started later as well, which further added to the delay in dropping water levels. Hopefully next year will be better, but we are supposed to have a La Niña winter (it already began but is supposed to be borderline), which is typically colder and snowier, with a late spring. :x But, with the way climate change has been messing around with the weather, I just hope that the weather conditions deviate from what is expected from a typical La Niña. :?

So now, I plan for next year, and hope I can get rid of my injuries so that I won't be so held back. I look forward to trying out the mud loosening with strong sticks pushing down and pulling up, to penetrate the mud below my hands, since my legs have been too sensitive to use my feet as shovels to bring the mud to the surface from deeper down. It could result in my bog becoming exposed sooner than if I hadn't done it, and I might be able to have looser mud beneath my feet as well, making it even more treacherous! :twisted: As I already just mentioned, I will keep tabs on the mud among the grass on the north side of the pond to see if it is a viable spot for creating a new sinking area, although it may take a while to be exposed. But then, it was exposed before my main bog was fully exposed, and was much thicker! I might even be able to have an earlier outing to my old Harris Creek quicksilt slide area, for the first time in years, to see if there is anything there still. I just hope next year turns out to be better than these past two seasons. i will just have to wait and see. :roll:
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I sink, therefore I WAM!!!!

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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 9/22/'20!

Postby rhinodynamo » Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:09 am

Love these.

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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 7/25/'21!

Postby Boggy Man » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:53 am

My June 24'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 1!

After my season ended last September, I waited all winter and all spring for a chance to finally begin my season the earliest I had in years! :D I was originally planning on going to Harris Creek in mid-June, but I was too occupied with working around the farm, such as putting in a garden, and pulling weeds. But, I finally put my feet down and decided that I wanted to go before a "heat dome" was forecast to move over us, bringing record heat, which would make conditions too hot to go to Harris Creek, which was at a relatively low elevation. So, I chose Thursday, June 24th, just after we had some rain, with things warm but not hot. I reserve hotter weather for higher elevation outings, where it is cooler in the mountains.

I was anxious to see if my slide area still had any quicksilt, although we had our driest spring on record, and even if there was any available in March/April after snowmelt, likely things would have long dried out. I also wanted to check for the colony of Mountain Lady Slipper orchids which were growing on the western end of the debris field, in damp silt, although they would had bloomed in mid June, the reason I originally wanted to go at that time but didn't, and would have likely finished by now. I also wanted to check out the "moose" pond (actually a small lake), to see if there was any mud exposed where two streams entered it. I also wanted to check out a trail that had a spring in it, with clay, but also choked with rocks. It had been years, so I wondered if it could have changed for the better at all. :roll:

My dad was initially hesitant about taking me when I first asked him the day before, but he finally conceded, and told me that was the last time he would take me to Harris Creek, because it was too far, although he could take me in the fall time during Hunting Season, when he could go off on an atv around the area. But I am leery of going on adventures at that time of year, although I sometimes do.

Heading up Harris Creek Road, I was shocked to see side trails lower down that I used to go down having "Private Property No Trespassing" signs! :shock: It used to be much further back where the private properties were! But, other trails I mainly went on more often in the past, further up, were publicly accessible, so my slide area was safe. :) He took me up Mosquito Lake Road (a turnoff just before the slide area on Harris Creek Road), which was extremely steep, and dropped me off at the entrance to the road that headed eastward and would pass by the north side of the "moose" pond, and I was on my way! :D

I noticed that beside the entrance to the road, was a pile of mashed up culverts, meaning that the road had been deactivated, meaning that the only traffic on that road would be that of the four-legged variety! :D I had to get off and walk my bike through each of the ditches that were left by the removed culverts before getting on my bike again. I had looked at Google Earth and then Apple Maps the night before, and determined that a turnoff onto a parallel road to the south would lead to a clearcut that would be even closer to the pond, saving me time! :D So, after continuing a little ways on the main road first to see if some muddy patches were still by the road, but finding nothing, I headed back and turned onto the other road that headed eastward south of the road I had been on, until it finally ended in the clearcut. Along the way there, I took a picture of an orange and yellow Hawkweeds:

2021 06 24 1A Orange Hawkweed.jpg

2021 06 24 1B Yellow Hawkweed.jpg

I then took off on foot, heading eastward through the debris-covered clearcut, taking a picture of a wild lily:

2021 06 24 1C Tiger Lily.jpg

I remembered the clearcut would become narrower, with me having to head north to pass through it, to get to the rest of the clearcut that would be just to the northwest of the pond. When I reached the southeast corner of the clearcut, I couldn't see any sign of any break in the forest where the pond would be. It seemed as though the pond had vanished! :?

I headed southward into the forest, looking for the clearing with the pond, but found nothing. :? I then came across a small creek in a small gulley, full of ferns and other moisture loving plants, and figured that that stream would lead me to the pond! I noticed that the water was flowing westward, so I headed in that direction. I took pix of the ferns and an orchid with greenish flowers:

2021 06 24 1D Lady Ferns Around Stream.jpg

2021 06 24 1E Green Bog Orchid.jpg


To Be Continued...
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I sink, therefore I WAM!!!!

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-The Boggy Man

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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 7/25/'21!

Postby Boggy Man » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:54 am

My June 24'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 2 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

Just like all the hiking I had done so far that day, it was a bit of an obstacle course with me having to go over or around fallen trees, and climbing up and down and along an embankment. What caught my eye was a fallen tree with silt that appeared to have poured over the ground on the embankment. I stomped on it, and the silt seemed to move, but its sponginess wasn't due to it being quicksilt, but due to it sitting on top of the mossy forest ground. I kept on heading down the stream, thinking that I could see a break in the trees, only for it to be nothing. The stream turned southward, and after heading just a tiny bit further, I decided to give up. Knowing that the clearcut was to the north, I headed straight north through the wooded obstacle course, and came across the road, and heading eastward down the road, I was at my bike within a minute!

I decided to head back to the other main road just to the north, to see if I could at least locate the spring down the embankment from the south side of the road, which fed a stream that led to the pond, my usual route. But, I could find nothing. No spring. :? The clearcut had changed so much over the years, with the forest growing back, that it was like being in a whole new area! I checked out part of the road on foot as well. Finally, the road turned northward, and looking to the southeast, the terrain was hilly, with no sign of the pond. I was really getting frustrated, because I had wasted all my morning searching for that pond! :x But, I did snack on my lunch (Pizza Pops). Along the way, I had taken a picture of a Shrubby Penstemon:

2021 06 24 1F Shrubby Penstemon.jpg

But then, I had a idea! :!: Perhaps I had the roads confused, and the road/clearcut to the SOUTH was the ACTUAL road that had the spring to the south of it! So, I headed back to the fork and headed back eastward down that road to the south, looking for a sign of the spring. Then, next thing I knew, I could hear the sound of running water, and investigated. Sure enough, there was the spring, water coming out of the embankment! :D The stream was a bit boggy just below the spring, but since the surrounding area was rocky, it wasn't going to be deep, and if it was, I would have known about it years ago. I continued down through the forest, following the stream. It likely merged with the other stream I had been following earlier, meaning if I had kept on following it, I would have reached the pond after all!

Finally, I reached the moose pond, but no moose, just ducks! :D There wasn't any mud exposed where the first stream entered the pond on the northeast part, but I still had a second stream on the northwestern part to check out, which was where I used to do some sinking ages ago when the water was low, although the exposed mud was rather stiff and needed to be worked then. The water was currently too high, since it was still early in the season. I had to make my way through more fallen trees on an embankment on the north side of the pond, following something of a trail. I took some pictures of the lake:

2021 06 24 1G Moose Lake Looking Westward.jpg

2021 06 24 1H Moose Lake Looking Southward.jpg

2021 06 24 1I Moose Lake Looking Eastward.jpg


To Be Continued...
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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 7/25/'21!

Postby Boggy Man » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:54 am

My June 24'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 3 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

When I reached the marshy area where the second stream entered from the west, there was black mud exposed in patches in the bushes and grass. I headed across the marshy area, trying not to get my shoes wet, and also headed to the edge of the pond, noticing that there wasn't really any mud exposed beyond the grass, although when I came across the second branch of the stream entering the pond, there was a small patch of mud exposed there. I had changed the memory cards in my camera, and took pix of the mud, as well as other patches of mud heading back. On the east side, I probed the mud with a stick, and found it to be roughly thigh deep. It was something that I could have worked nicely to wallow in, but it was getting too late, and I needed to check out the slide area before the day was out. It looked like my search for the trail lower down with the rocky clay spring was out of the question.

Finally, some mud pix! :D

2021 06 24 1J Moose Lake Mud At Incoming Stream.jpg

2021 06 24 1K Moose Lake Mud By Incoming Stream.jpg

2021 06 24 1L Moose Lake Mud By Incoming Stream.jpg

2021 06 24 1M Moose Lake Mud By Incoming Stream.jpg

2021 06 24 1N Moose Lake Mud By Incoming Stream.jpg


To Be Continued...
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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 7/25/'21!

Postby Boggy Man » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:54 am

My June 24'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 4 (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

Switching my memory cards back again, I headed back uphill, taking a photo of a Bead Lily, and a clump of Spotted Coralroot Orchids:

2021 06 24 1O Bead Lily.jpg

2021 06 24 1P Spotted Coralroot Orchids.jpg

Then, I quickly reached a small clearcut, which was the one I had been ORIGINALLY looking for! I passed the clearcut, and through the bushes, I reached the road again, and my bike. I headed back, finally noticing the turnoff that would have led me to the other clearcut to the south, the one I was ORIGINALLY supposed to be searching for! Along the way, I noticed a muddy low area to the north of the road, which looked interesting. I switched my memory cards again, and took more photos of the mud there. A bit of it was stiff enough for me to walk on top of, and it had lots of cattle tracks. To the east, was some water in that tiny pond. Perhaps that was the muddy area by the road that I had remembered years ago and was looking for earlier:

2021 06 24 1Q Mud Around Tiny Pond.jpg

2021 06 24 1R Mud Around Tiny Pond.jpg

2021 06 24 1S Mud Around Tiny Pond.jpg


To Be Concluded...
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Last edited by Boggy Man on Mon Jul 26, 2021 8:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 7/25/'21!

Postby Boggy Man » Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:55 am

My June 24'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 5, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!

2021 06 24 1T Mud Around Tiny Pond.jpg

I then returned to my bike, again swapping memory cards. I got back to Mosquito Lake Road some time around 4 PM, and after a fast descent, I was back at Harris Creek Road at around 4:15 PM, ready to check out my slide area to see if there was any quicksilt left, or if any new slides occurred creating new opportunities! :D

I eagerly headed eastward to the clearing overlooking the slide area, hoping that the trees that were growing along the edge had grown larger, to make it more hidden from view. That clearing was my entrance point with my bike into the forest to the west of the clearing, where I would drop it off, grab my things, and head further west along the top of the cliff to where the silt cliffs ended and the embankment began, where I would head down to what used to be my sinking area, something I hadn't been to since 2012, 9 years ago! :shock:

When I finally reached the clearing, I was horrified to discover that it was full of people camping, with some trucks and a couple of tents set up! :shock: My one favorite spot in the middle of nowhere, and there had to be a bunch of people there! :x I continued past them a ways, before pausing out of sight and turning back. But, all hope was not lost! :roll: That clearing was over the eastern part of the slide area, and the slide is so large, that my more interesting spot was quite a ways to the west, mostly out of sight, although I didn't want to take any chances with any sinking in sight of the cliffs if I found anything. :? But, at least I could still check things out. :)

Away from the campers, I walked my bike from the road southward into the bush, which was an alternate entry/exit spot I had used numerous times before. I laid my bike down on an old trail in the forest, gathered my stuff together, and headed to the top of the cliffs. The view of the slide area below was unrecognizable! :shock: The cliffs looked different, and there was a narrow band of bare silt between the cliff/embankment, and a new forest on the debris field itself! I carefully made my way down the embankment on the west side of the cliffs, and reached the slide area. The silt was dry with damp spots, but solid. No quicksilt anywhere to be seen. I felt a bit disoriented, because it looked sooo different. I headed westward, to the area near the western toe of the slide to see if I could locate the Mountain Lady Slipper Orchids. When I reached the edge, I had to go into the new forest to search, but there was no sign of the orchids. Either I had not checked the correct spot, or the new forest had made the conditions too unfavorable for them to grow anymore. :? I then slowly headed back eastward, uphill through the northern edge of the debris field, wandering through the bushes, trying to identify any features that I had remembered last time I was there. I also turned around and headed back westward through the new forest to look for familiar landmarks. But, it had changed too much. Time went by too fast for me to explore the rest of the slide that was out of sight of the campers, and for all I knew there could have been some sinking areas around another part of the fringe (toe) of the slide further to the south. I managed to identify my main exit point, where I was able to retrace my original path years ago up the steep silty embankment to the steep intact forested embankment, finally reaching the top again. I switched memory cards again, and took a photo of the slide area from the clifftop. The main sinking area was definitely dead, although it looked that way in previous years after being alive early in the spring. :?

2021 06 24 1U West End Of Harris Creek Slide.jpg

I returned to my bike, and headed back down the road, phoning my mom when I got a clear signal, discovering that my dad was already on his way. I then met my dad at a junction in the road, just as he was arriving there to wait for me (couldn't have timed it better), and we returned home.

It was great to finally touch base with a place I hadn't been to in 9 years, but I was disappointed that I had wasted so much time looking for the moose pond in the wrong places! I never had a chance to check out that rocky clay spring in the middle of a trail. Years ago, when I pumped my legs in it, it would shift beneath my feet and I would start to sink, but the rocks grinding against my legs made it too painful to continue. I wondered if it had changed at all. I also never had a chance to fully check out the entirety of the slide, either, and there was a trail along the south side of Harris Creek Road further to the east that had a marshy area that was fenced in, making me wonder if it had any spots that were treacherous and therefore too hazardous for cattle. :roll: It also had morel mushrooms in the past, something I was keeping an eye out for all day for my mom. So many things I wanted to check out, but never had the time. :(

After my bikeride, the heat dome moved in, bringing record breaking heat to much of BC, with some places feeling more like DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA! :shock: Back on July 5'th, 1937, Midale and Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan had set Canada's all time historical high temperature of 45˚C, or 113˚F. But, that record finally fell when Lytton, BC exceeded that temperature three days in a row, with each day getting hotter and hotter, with the peak temperature reaching 49.6˚C, or 121˚F! Kamloops BC peaked at 47.3˚C, or 117˚F. For a few days, our thermometer peaked at 42˚C, or 108˚F, with it hotter in the valley, with it being 43.9˚C, or 111˚F in Vernon on June 30'th.

But, Lytton receiving top honors as Canada's new all time hot spot came at a horrific price! :shock: A wildfire swept through, and destroyed 90% of the village! :o :shock: They believe it was sparked by a train! After the heat dome finally moved away, we got back to more typical heat, with temperatures in the lower to mid 30's (mid 80's to mid 90's). But, more forest fires started sparking all over the place, most caused by lightning.

My next adventure would be to my Crescent Road pond area, to see if our record heat after my first bikeride, not to mention our record dry spring, lowered water levels enough to expose my sinking spot weeks earlier than usual! :roll: Last year, it was submerged most of the summer (it was kinda exposed the first time on August 4'th due to bloating with swamp gas and water underneath, which was released with my sink, lowering the mud below the water level), with no signs of it being completely exposed until mid September, during Hunting Season! Looking at our drought situation, this year looks to be shaping up to be the best since 2017, the year my neck pain started up (at least it has settled down since then)!
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Re: BM's Boggy Adventure & BG Pix! Updated 8/2/'21!

Postby Boggy Man » Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:22 am

My July 5'th, 2021 Adventure, Part 1!

After my June 24'th outing, I couldn't wait for the next outing, where I would check out my Crescent Road pond sinking spot! :D I had to wait until after the heat dome, which brought unprecedented heat to BC, had finally moved away. My mom was due for left knee replacement surgery on Tuesday, July 6'th for her osteoarthritis (she had her right knee done years ago), and after that, my dad would have to stick around to help her with things for the next few weeks. So, since my dad wouldn't be able to give me a lift into the mountains for a few weeks after that, I planned on going on Monday, July 5'th, the day before her surgery. After my dad not wanting to take me to the Harris Creek area anymore, he was also reluctant to take me up to Crescent Road, but he gave in, since I had done so much work around the farm. The weather was still fairly warm, and over the past several days, they kept on forecasting afternoon or evening thunderstorms, but nothing ever materialized. I just hoped that this day would be no different, although the satellite photo showed a bunch of cloud that was going to brush by us early in the day, and be gone by afternoon.

On our way up, my dad was complaining about how rough the road was, more washboard than usual, as well as potholes. He didn't like shaking his truck up. When we got further up into the mountains, I was shocked to see so many new logging roads turning off the main road, including one going replacing an old dirt road where I used to bike and hike years ago, which led to a meadow with some very shallow, but wallow-able, clay mud on the north side back then. With all the new logging activity, I was a bit concerned about the ribbons I saw last year on trees at my drop-off point on Crescent Road, and hoped that it was still undisturbed. The last thing I wanted was for a lot of logging activity to happen on the road, just down from, and the opposite side of, the turnoff to my pond! :shock: But, I was relieved to see that Crescent Road showed no new activity, and when my dad dropped me off, the grassy clearing there was still the same as last year. :) I got my things, and tested my bike to make certain it was functioning well before my dad took off, leaving me on the plateau, in the woods, ready to begin checking things out! :D

I headed straight to my pond, having to go over a small fallen tree on the dirt sideroad, and an extra, slightly larger fallen tree than before on the side trail from that road, to get to the clearing north of the pond, where I would drop my bike off. But, the spot in the woods down an old trail where I would usually drop my bike off was blocked by yet another fallen tree, a really big one, forcing me to drop my bike off on the north side of smaller trees at the entrance to the patch of woods (it continued through the trees briefly before coming into a grassy area to the west). I gathered my things, and headed southward through the alders to the pond, noticing how many White Bog Orchids were sprouting up all over the place! :shock: I never seen so many there! I took some photos:

2021 07 05 2A White Bog Orchids.jpg

2021 07 05 2B White Bog Orchid Closeup.jpg


To Be Continued...
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Last edited by Boggy Man on Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:37 am, edited 3 times in total.
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