My August 18'th, 2020 Adventure, Part 6, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!I was all ready to get started with stirring up the mud again, but the sun went behind some clouds, cutting down on the heat a bit.
It had also been windy during my hike, but things were calming down again. Finally, the sun began to peak out again, and with no clothes on, I slowly entered the watery mud on the north side, where I had previously exited, where mud my body dragged up earlier on exiting was closer to the surface of the water. I slowly settled down to my chest in the loose, water-covered mire that was thicker deeper down. Feeling uncomfortably cool in the water/mud mix, I was uncertain whether or not I could go through with this. But, once my body got used to the temperature, I was able to continue on, trying to loosen the mud with my hands as far down as I could reach. I wound up mostly standing in the middle of the water-covered bog, facing north, struggling and churning mud around me, with the mud barely coming to the surface in front of me, no matter how much I tried to bring it up. I lingered there for some time, loose watery mud from the butt up, and thicker, gooier stuff below that, swamp gas occasionally bubbling to the surface, including along my body from partways up. I finally started to move around more to mix the mud again, only to have worse cramps in the inside of one thigh start up!
I relaxed to let it settle a bit, before finally deciding it was time to "get out while the gettin's good"! I didn't want to have any extremely painful leg cramp episodes, and the sooner I could get out, the shorter the cramps would hopefully last. I exited around the northwest side, my lower body once again dragging up more thick stuff from deeper down, which I pushed off my body into the bog. Perhaps repeated entrances/exits would have allowed me to bring up thick stuff from deeper down to mix into the water to eliminate it better, but the effort of pushing down on the grass to lift myself up would have likely re-activated my abdominal muscle pain, something I didn't want to re-visit.
I have had enough re-activations of previous injuries plaguing me steadily over the years.
Plagued with the leg cramps, I managed to find the best position to clean off, by sitting on the floating grass that sunk below the water beneath my weight, with my legs straight forward, which allowed my cramps to subside. Trying to kneel or bend my legs made the cramps worse, but sitting with leg straight helped. I was happy to notice that the water I was cleaning up in was a bit warmer than before.
I then had to stand up to clean myself lower down. After my cleanup, while I was in the process of air drying, I decided to save time by putting the sticks back in around the bog at the same time. Some had broke, so I had to replace them with new ones, tearing down/apart some dead alders in the area. I also added some more sticks for front of the fragile grassy area on the south side of the bog, which had holes in it that I took pictures of earlier. Once the sticks were in place, I took a picture of the flooded bog, once again surrounded by sticks:
2020 08 18 2Y Crescent.jpg
I got dressed, except for my shoes, and was almost ready to call it a day, when I decided at the last minute to check out the shaded, northwest corner of the tiny pond in the far south end again. When I got there, I noticed that the drop in water level had definitely exposed the shaded, shallow, algae-covered, organic and clay mud, with the fallen sticks on top from dead alders!
I took a photo of it:
2020 08 18 2Z Crescent.jpg
I then carefully started picking out the alder branches, and tossing them onto the stinging nettles on the very rocky bouldery (site of a rockslide ages ago) shoreline, trying to take care not to splatter mud on my clothes. I proceeded to walk through the mire, finding it nice and thick, with the granular clay being stiffer. I just couldn't resist mushing it up with my feet, as I continued to remove the rest of the sticks and toss them aside into the stinging nettles. The clay was around 1 to 2 foot deep, with it making alluring sucking and slurping sounds as I mushed it up. It felt sooo enticing, that I just couldn't resist!
I stepped out, cleaned off my legs on the floating grass in the north side of the tiny pond, stripped, and set my clothes in a high dry spot among the alders, a bit concerned about how my shorts did have a little bit of mud splatter. I was all ready for my final, unexpected, bonus bit of mudplay!
I knelt down, facing north, and worked my knees into the stiff, but slightly loosened clay. I slowly moved my chest forward, struggling more and more horizontally, moving a large alder trunk forward out of the way. I worked my arms into the mud, pulling up thick granular clay (I think it had tiny sandgrain sized clamshells mixed through it), and mushing it up. I also pulled out a small rock and tossed it aside. As I struggled, my lower abdomen and lower chest were settling in more and more into the thick embrace of the sticky goo. It felt quite wonderful, but I wished that it had been deeper. I was a bit concerned about aggravating my hip pain and right abductor pain from my struggles in the stiffer thicker mud, not to mention knee pain if my knees bent too much in the position I was in. But, imagining that the thick muck was going to slowly and completely suck me down into it, I had nice stimulating
struggle, after which I carefully worked myself up out of the gripping stiff thick mud, taking care not to hurt my legs/knees/hips, and then smoothed it out.
I cleaned off in the floating grass on the north side of the small pond, a job which was substantially easier, since the mud was mostly on the front of my abdomen with nothing on my back.
The water felt warmer in that smaller pond, which was nice.
I quickly air dried, and took a photo of the disturbed area, the final photo of the day:
2020 08 18 2ZA Crescent.jpg
I got dressed, and was happy to see that the mud splattered on my shorts was drying, and brushed off nicely, with some barely noticeable dusty residue left. I returned to my main bog, got the rest of my things together, and headed back towards my bike, waiting to put my shoes on at a higher rocky area on shore further up the shoreline to the north to give my feet some time to dry. I returned to my bike, put all my things away in my saddlebags, and headed back down the sideroad towards Crescent Road. On my way, I noticed that as I got closer to the entrance, cowpies on the west side of the road, which I didn't see coming up the east side of the road, had tire tracks in them, definite proof that a vehicle did go partways up the road but not far. On Crescent Road, I took a look at those blue ribbons in the dropoff clearing once again, and noticed that there was a line of ribbons tied to trees heading through the forest to the south, likely marking the road. I returned to my bike and continued onward, heading for the valley, snacking on a couple of Sweet'n Salty nut bars while still in the mountains. As I coasted my way down into the valley, I suddenly discovered that something didn't seem right with my brakes. Then, I realized that my front brake was not working at all!
But, at least my rear brake was working, and that was all I needed. So, it looked like I would have to fix that problem before my next bikeride. My brother picked me up in the valley just after sunset, expressing some concern about how late it was getting, and then by the time he got me home, it was getting dark. In fact, just as we were heading up my home street, he got a call from his wife that my mom had called her to find out about if I had been picked up! Later that evening, when getting up from the couch after watching tv, I was suddenly hit with intensely painful leg cramps on the inside of my right leg, which took a while to go away, and quite draining!
Walking around didn't give relief, but in the end, sitting up on the floor with my legs straight in front of me was what made them go away, the same position I used at my Crescent Road pond during cleanup to relieve the cramps.
Overall, while the weather was excellent that day (temperature in Vernon hit 35.7˚C, or 96˚F but somewhat cooler in the higher elevations but still nice and warm), I was a bit disappointed in how long it was taking for the water levels to drop sufficiently to expose my mud.
I just couldn't work the mud up to the water's surface. At this rate, it looks like I might have to wait until early September before it gets exposed, and hope that we get some decent weather then, with no heavy rains to cause any setbacks in the dropping water levels.
Since I wasn't able to make any videos this time, at least I took a number of photos, many of which could be used as backgrounds!
I had been thinking that if only I could find a way to bring up thicker stuff from deeper down without having to use my legs and feet...
Then, after a bit of brainstorming, I realized that if lifting my body up out of the mud drags mud up with me, then perhaps using a strong stick, something that isn't brittle and won't have pieces breaking off in the mud, perhaps uneven shaped, with side branches that are just stubs, that I can push down and pull up, could do the trick! And perhaps different sizes for different depths! It is something I could try out next year!
I just hope that it doesn't cause me to strain and re-injure my shoulders or abdominal muscles, or other parts of my body.
I thought it might be interesting to note that while my bog is not hazardous for me naked or with shorts on, it is the type of stuff that would be treacherous for someone with waders on, because of the thicker stuff down below to suck and hold boots deeper down, and the looser stuff on top to give nothing to push yourself up with!
Even though the blue ribbons marking the future site of a logging road heading south, and the associated logging activity that will go with it, is away from my area, I am a bit concerned about the logging traffic on the way up Crescent road to my area.
Also, the presence of forestry workers in the general area concerns me, since I don't want anyone to see me turning northward up my sideroad, since I don't want people there to know where I am! Hopefully all the activity would take place during the fall/winter/spring months, when I am not accessing the area, and be gone by mid-summer when I start accessing the area again.
I hope for one more adventure this year, on September 9'th, the day before Hunting Season. But I wish that Hunting Season started later, because the 10'th would have been warmer, but I don't want to take too many chances.