My August 18'th, 2022 Adventure, Part 3, The Conclusion (Click Here For The Beginning With More Pix)!Then, I put my camera away, and headed to the pond's edge to feel the water. It was a little cool, but warming up, so I figured that if I gave it a bit more time, it would be more comfortable for cleanup. So, I returned to my bike, grabbed my lunch, and walked northward up the sideroad, snacking on a couple of Pizza Pops for lunch. I stopped at a spot on the dirt road where there were some deep ruts, two of which had clay in them, with the east rut stiffer and the west rut softer, both with large cattle hoof prints in them. The mud was only an inch or two deep, and I wished that I had a deep pit of that
. I dipped my shoe tip in it slightly, before wiping the mud off it on the ground. I felt tempted to just gather it up into a nice, gooey clump to wallow in, but there wasn't enough there, and it would be a rather embarrassing situation if anyone came up that road while I was in the "act"!
I continued on northward to where the road passed the pond with the ring bog to the east through the trees. Glancing through the trees, I could tell that the water level was high there as well, so I never bothered to go there, instead deciding to follow the road to the east (right) fork north of the pond, and follow it eastward to the clearcut, where it passed by a depression with water in it and clay on the edge, on the east side of the road. I wanted to see what it looked like this year. When I finally got there, it had water, but very little clay on the edge, and it was full of logs, something I had forgotten about. Nothing of interest there, so I headed back.
When I reached the fork, I started to wonder if I should take the north (left) fork and head to the entrance to animal trails leading to the extensive meadows to the north, and check out the quaking bog there.
I started heading a little ways up that trail, but then changed my mind. I felt that I had spent enough time waiting for things to warm up, and it was time for me to have my first sink of the season!
So, I headed back southward, stopping again at the clay in the ruts to take a look at it again, knowing that there was too little in a too risky place.
I returned to my bike, put my lunch bag away in my saddlebag, and headed back to my sinking spot, ready to get set up! Ever since I had started my day, I noticed that my thighs felt kinda tight hiking around, making me worry about leg cramps. I just hoped things would be all right.
But, finally, I was feeling ready enough for my first sink of the season!
I had given the sun enough time to warm things up enough to avoid getting chilled, and although there were some thin clouds that had been filtering the sun on and off, it was not too bad, and I was hoping that the hot sun would finally stay out!
I hoped that the extra time would allow the water to drop ever so slightly, but couldn't really tell if it did or not.
It was a shame that the water was so high, because that meant that I couldn't use my breathing hose for an extended submersion as long as there was any surface water in or around the mud. The last thing I would want is to be deep beneath the surface, the hose being the only thing keeping me alive, only to have water start pouring through the hose into my throat!
So, any breathing hose sinks were out of the question.
Given the situation, I knew that this sink would be basically one shot, after which water would flood over the surface. So, I had a choice to either have a very tempting stimulating off-camera sink to enjoy the first sink of the season to its fullest, or to do a dramatic video, which would be something for everyone to enjoy over and over. I opted for making the video. So, I changed into my junk shorts, and since its waist elastic was stretched, I had to tie a red string around it to hold it on.
I was originally planning on setting up the pole with the camera on the east side of the bog, where it was more stable than the more thinly matted south side, but the sun's position had progressed too far westward to make it work. So, instead, I chose to stick a pole into the southwest side of the bog, where the vegetation mat was reasonable thick, without movements rocking the stick too much. Then, I went back to my things and set my camera's picture mode to 16:9 to match the video format, which allowed for more accurate setup - proper framing of the spot that was going to suck me down beneath the surface! I attached the camera onto what was left of my Gorillapod, which had its longest leg break off last year, and was left with only a medium leg that had half broken off years before, and a shorter stubby leg where parts had broken off over the years. I hoped that it would still work. But, when I tried to attach it to the stick, I just couldn't get it to hold on properly. I tried all sorts of things, but it refused to get secured!
I then tried using a shoelace to help, but that still didn't work! Each time it seemed to be close, the top part of the Gorillapod with the camera would then flop downward, as if the ball joint that the camera was on had become too loose. I then decided to try a different stick, with more side branches to see if I could get it better secured. But, still no luck.
In fact, when I tried to tie the legs with the shoelace, I had trouble holding the camera in place while trying to tie the shoelace, and the camera/Gorillapod would flip over, and I would catch it on time, at least for a couple of times when that happened. Then, it flipped over and fell to the wet muddy ground on the edge of the bog!
Fortunately, there was hardly any water/mud on it, a reason why I got a waterproof camera in the first place (the other reason is if I get caught in a rainstorm with the camera). After fiddling around a bit more, I finally gave up on trying to get the camera mounted, meaning I was also giving up on taking my first video of the season.
I returned to my things with the camera and Gorillapod, removing the stick as well. I took off my junk shorts, and put on my new swim cap, which fit tightly over my hair and ears, which would keep them nice and clean and dry. I put on my swim goggles, which would keep the mud out of my eyes, and headed back to the bog, to finally have my first sink/submersion of the season!
Standing on the west side facing east, without clothes, except for my swim cap and goggles, I jumped on the grass to see the wet ground in front of me quiver, and chased the "resident" frog to the water on the south side of the bog so that it would be out of the way. I was imagining that there were stories about patches of deadly quicksand in the area where the only thing that ever escaped from the mire's deadly grip were bog farts, and I was skeptical that this would be one such patch.
Then, I jumped into the middle of the patch of wet ground, immediately getting gulped down up to my chest in the gooey muck, feeling the slight shock of the coolness of it initially, with swamp gas starting to bubble and fart around me! I lingered there, feeling the mire warming up to me where it was in contact with my skin. It was loose on top, but thicker and gooier deeper down, but still very soft. I very gently rested my arms on the surface skin of the hungry muck, and just savored the feel of finally standing in practically bottomless farting ooze!
Without breaking my arms through the to skin on the surface, I struggled, slowly sinking deeper and deeper into the sucking morass, the surface quivering all around me! Because of the fact that there was water around the outer edge, I didn't want to stir and churn the mud around me for fear that water might come up and flood things around me, and I wanted to preserve the brown surface of the surrounding muck as much as possible, especially for my submersion! I moved my feet, and made digging motions with them to help the hungry mire to suck me down even deeper, swamp gas still farting around me. I reached out with my hands in all directions, twisting around as well to try reaching behind me, pressing lightly on the surface skin without breaking it, finding that it was firmer behind me, where it was slightly more raised, and mushiest to my front-left, where it was closer to water level, and just soft but held together the rest of the way around me. As my foot digging movements continued, I slowly sunk deeper into the hungry quagmire, the surface slowly starting to close over my shoulders. I had to keep looking away to my left, so that I wouldn't stare towards the sun, which was nice and hot. Finally, with my arms laying on the surface in front of me, I slowly increased the downward pressure, until the farting surface slowly yielded and sucked closed over them, leaving only my hands sticking out in front of me, the disturbance releasing even more farts of swamp gas. Then, I plunged my arms down deeper, my hands getting sucked under the surface as well, making the mire fart even more! With my arms and hands sucked under the surface, my struggles allowed the voracious ooze to suck me down even deeper! I pushed my arms straight down, feeling the chilliness of the mire on them briefly before it then warmed up around them like a muddy form of insulation. The voracious quagmire rose up my neck to my chin, and then to my mouth. As it slowly rose even higher, it was starting to partially restrict my breathing through my mouth, but not completely. I could still suck in air past the mud, but then it rose enough for it to partially ooze into my mouth, forcing me to spit/blow it out, and turn my head up higher to keep breathing out of my mouth, even though my nose was freer from being higher. The mud was covering over much of my mouth, but I was still able to suck air through it, and spit/blow out any mud that tried oozing in, loving the experience of being on the verge of "suffocating" in the hungry quagmire, a danger that increased the deeper I got sucked down!
Then, struggling, head facing upwards, trying to keep breathing through my mouth with the mud closing in on it, my stimulation exploded a few feet beneath the surface!
After the great release, I felt my body temperature suddenly drop, like a bunch of heat was instantly sucked out of my body!
But, I wasn't finished yet with my sink, because I had yet to completely submerge! So, facing upwards, I took several deep breaths, and then held it, before finally bending my legs and pulling my upper body completely under, and then straightening my legs, plunging my feet deeper down into the gulping mire, and then straightening my head to face forward. For around quarter of a minute, I was totally engulfed in suffocating softness and darkness, listening to the underbog gurgling sounds of the mire passing swamp gas around me to the surface above me. I wished that I could have stayed down longer, but I had to come back up for air. So, I quickly climbed back up to the surface, and started wiping gooey mud from my face/head, my swim goggles getting displaced slightly, forcing me to reposition them. I noticed that the parts where I wiped the mud from started to feel cold quickly. But, I knew that I would quickly warm up again. I worked myself up higher, turned around and started to crawl through the mud to the west side, where I grabbed the grass, and pulled myself out the rest of the way, wiping the mud off me as I went. Just as I had expected, water was flowing over top of the spot I had just sunk into.
When exiting the quagmire, I realized that the hot sun was absent!
I looked up to see that it had completely vanished behind thicker clouds that seemed to have come out of nowhere, and it was all thicker overcast, with all of the blue skies to the north, and moving away!
I was relying on the sun to dry me off and heat me up quickly, but now I only had the warm air to do that!
But, anyways, I just hoped that the water had warmed up enough while the sun was out for a comfortable cleanup. So, I used the yellow waterlily rhizomes for support in the pond, since the bottom was the same kind of mud that sucked me under on shore. There was a decent warm layer of water on top, but chilly deeper down, especially where it was mixed in with sediment. I would swish the stirred sediment-filled colder water away to bring in clearer warmer water, before cleaning my head, and upper body, removing my swim goggles and setting then on a yellow waterlily leaf after cleaning them, and then continuing to clean myself. I then headed to the shore, and onto the mat of small floating rushes, to clean up myself further, laying my back on the rushes to rub my back on them (Nature's scrub brush), before continuing to wash myself off in the pond, splashing water on my back before going back to the floating vegetation mat to clean my lower body parts, swishing sediment-filled water away to get cleaner water around me for cleanup. Once I got myself cleaned up, I had to wait to dry off, removing my swim cap, and placing it and my goggles on some alder branches to dry off. My hair was mostly dry, although it did feel slightly damp. But, I was happy that my eyes and ears were clean as well. I took a photo of the patch of ground that I had been sucked under and escaped from:
2022 08 18 1J Crescent.jpg
Once I was dry enough, I got dressed in my clothes, and had to spend some time waiting to warm up again, something that I had hoped wouldn't have been a problem this time, since the sun, combined with the unseasonably hot airmass, should have cooked me instantly! But, for a day that was supposed to be mainly sunny, the arrival of thick cloud cover earlier than forecast spoiled my fast warmup.
So, I headed back to my bike, grabbed my granola bars, and snacked on them while walking northward up that sideroad again, checking out that bit of clay again, probing the peanut buttery goo with a stick (can't remember if I had did that earlier or not), wishing that I had a deep pit of it. I continued down the road past the other pond to the north with the ring bog, to a small clearing, and then stopped at the fork. I then turned around to head back, briefly searching for the entrance to the trail that completed a loop from a left trail in the fork to the north. After finding that, I headed back, with a couple pieces of junk (beer can and pen cap) that I decided to pick up to discard at home. I looked at the patch of clay with some cattle hoof prints again in the deep ruts (west rut having the softest stuff), once again, a bit disappointed it wasn't extensive enough or deep enough for a wallow, but then, as mentioned earlier, would be a major source of embarrassment if someone had came up that road and saw me in the act!
I dipped a finger into the smooth clay to get a feel of it, before wiping it off on the ground, and letting the residue dry white on my finger until I would clean it off later at my pond. I then returned to my things, put my lunch bag away, and was finally feeling warm enough to have my final sink of the day, since I wanted to even out the surface, instead of having a low spot in the center and outer edges with a raised ring in between. I just wished that the sun would come out, but the cloud cover wouldn't allow it.
Back at my things, I got undressed, but since I wasn't going to submerge myself, I didn't need swim goggles or cap. I also took off my glasses, since they were sunglasses, and I wanted to see things more brightly (I would have brought along regular glasses if I had known that it was going to cloud over). I headed over to my bog, and was ready for my final sink of the day!
I chose to start with the southwest patch of exposed mud, because it was raised the highest. So, facing east, I carefully lowered myself into it, sinking to my chest in the farting bubbling ooze. But, with a little bit of struggling, the surface broke up, and then water started to move over. I churned the mud, and faced west, pulling up mud from deeper down, and struggled, with mud surrounding me, but it would be just barely at water level. The mud would settle and water would move in, and I would try lifting it up around me to keep it at the surface. I struggled, with some thicker stuff beneath pulled over to my lower body, but I wasn't feeling warm enough for stimulation. I struggled and churned the mud with my hands, lifting up more of the gooier stuff to the surface to mix in with the waterier looser stuff, but it wasn't enough to eliminate the surface water, and I didn't want to reach down any further to bring up thicker stuff deeper down, because things were feeling cool, and I didn't want to get my underarms and shoulders muddy this time. I could feel strain on my arms and shoulders when stretching my arms out while churning the mud around me, and I hoped that it would not be problematic. I then made my way counterclockwise around the bog, able to move my legs to walk through the loose mud and wiggling my upper body forward, mushing up the exposed mud with my hands. Before I mushed up the surface on the south and east side, I struggled, with the mire bubbling and farting around me. Facing east, the swamp gas farting out of the undisturbed surface in front of me was oozing yellow bubbly suds out onto the surface, likely from the higher water content in the mud just below the surface skin there, especially on the east side. I finally worked my way around to the north and then west side again. As I went around, I was also mushing under all plants that were sprouting up, as well as clumps of sod, which fortunately wasn't very many (one was on the south side). All the time swamp gas was bubbling up out of the water that was covering the mud like crazy, and occasionally, I could feel some larger bubbles rise along my body. But, I felt that no amount of struggling would give me total stimulation, especially since having water over the mud spoils the effect, and I couldn't pull sufficient mud up to the surface around me to be surrounded. So, making certain that the frog, which had been in the grass on the edge of the west side, was out of my way, I finally made my way to the west and then northwest side, dragging myself out of the mud, pushing off the mud sticking to my body, which was mostly my legs and feet, since they were in thicker mud, and my upper body was in looser waterier mud. I needed to preserve as much mud as possible in the bog, and not walk away with much on my body each time.
I finally headed back to the water to repeat my cleanup, using yellow water lily rhizomes as support for part of my body and then the floating mat of vegetation on the edge of the pond for support for cleaning my lower body. Then, I had noticed that it was already around 5:30 pm, much later than I had anticipated! I took a photo of the bog all mushed up and submerged:
2022 08 18 1K Crescent.jpg
While waiting to dry, I replaced all the sticks around the bog to keep animals out of it, and then took another photo:
2022 08 18 1L Crescent.jpg
I grabbed all my things, and put it into my saddlebags in my bike, made my way back to the sideroad, lifting my bike over a couple fallen small tree trunks. I was back on the road after 6 pm, and managed to get to a location almost all the way into the valley where I knew I had cell service at 7:33 pm, where I turned back on the iphone, and phoned my dad, who then picked me up in the valley, just before it was getting dark.
My dad told me that he had hurt himself heading back home after dropping me off!
He had hit a pothole that locked up his wheels, throwing him forward, hurting his left arm and shoulder, which felt sore!
He was concerned about his wheel alignment, as well as his implanted defibrillator/pacemaker. But he already had a scheduled hospital appointment the next day, and it turned out to be okay. So, it looks like he won't be taking me all the way up Crescent Road again this year, unless they regrade the road.
That means that I will wind up being dropped off at a corner that he used to drop me off years ago on the main road, before all the potholes begin. This will delay my arrival to my Crescent Road Pond by perhaps an hour, and will put excess stress on my legs, which could increase the risk of knee pain, and definitely leg cramps! I was surprised that I never suffered from any leg cramps at all this time, on my first outing of the season, although while in the mud, I did feel some soreness coming on in my left foot/lower leg, but fortunately it vanished!
This time, my dad wasn't concerned about me, since I gave him a later contact time (half an hour before sunset) than in other years, which was around supper time. While the day was warm, I was disappointed about the lack of sunshine upon exiting the mud after the first sink of the day, which resulted in another lengthy, time-wasting warmup period, again!
The water level was high, but not quite as high as it was on my first visit to this spot last year, on July 5'th, where breaking the surface of the mud caused water to bubble up from underneath, something that didn't happen this year, although it did flood over from the sides. On July 30'th of last year, I had my first submersion with lower water levels than now, with the mud all exposed and thick. There is quite a contrast between last year when we had the heat dome in June, with hot dry weather extending through the summer months, and this year, with the cool, wet June and early July delaying the water level drop, and so, even with the subsequent heat and dryness and this late start to my outings, the bog
STILL flooded over after being fully disturbed!
But, at least I had my first vertical submersion sink of the season, with stimulation!
I was quite a bit disappointed that the Gorillapod was unable to hold onto the stick with its one remaining partially functional tentacle (the second tentacle was too short to wrap around anything and the third tentacle was completely broken off), forcing me to give up on taking a video of my first sink, something I soooo badly wanted to share!
Here is a photo taken at home, 11 days later, of the Gorillapod, which has seen better days, showing what I had to try to work with now:
2022 08 29 1M Fragmented Gorillapod.jpg
Until the breaking off of the longest tentacle last year, this Gorillpod had been serving me well for 14 years or more, back when the Deep Sinking forum was the main area of activity, before Quicksand Fans even existed! I can't remember the exact year I bought it, but I was using it in 2008 at the shallow lake south of Bridge Lake, which had one area with really treacherously
soft bottomless mud! I was a bit split between deciding to try gluing it back together, or to bite the bullet and shell out around $60 for a brand new one.
I also thought about perhaps using stiff flexible wires to replace two tentacles, wrapping one end around the knobs of where the two most broken tentacles were.
I had a few biting flies, but they weren't too much of a problem, and I never encountered any leeches in the water during cleanup. My left knee felt sore biking back, but after coasting down the hill, it got better, although it may have been slightly irritated again once in the valley, but vanished after that.
I was concerned about my neck clicking getting worse, and after my adventure, I noticed that a more "knuckle-cracking" type of clicking had returned, something which I had forgotten about that I had last year as well, and had vanished since last year, until now. But, at least there has been no pain with it.
I never checked out the clay on the far south end to see if it was exposed, although it was shallow with a rocky bottom. I had thought about trying out the spot on the north end of the pond, where I had worked a chest deep soft spot in the stiffer muck there, but never got the chance, because I was too preoccupied with either sinking in my main spot, trying to warm up, or mushing the mud there as it flooded with water. I also had forgotten the exact spot where I used to put my things near my sinking spot, and wound up putting things in two places, the correct place given away by the Lady's Tresses orchids (they were larger this year, and I never got around to taking a photo of them) on the path leading from there to the bog.
So, now, I wait for my next opportunity for an outing. Given the amount of water on the surface of the bog when I left it, waiting a week would be insufficient, and a week later, the weather has been hot, but also with thunderstorms in the higher elevations in the afternoons. So, I will likely wait until around the beginning of September for my next adventure (eyeing Friday, September 2'nd), when the mud should finally be fully exposed, and the weather hot!
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So, no more trying to fiddle around with trying to get a broken Gorillapod to work, no more trying to find any workarounds, or repairs. I am starting with a fresh, brand-new Gorillapod, which means I am back in business, regarding making videos that work! 
I did that several times, and continued to slowly pull one foot and then the other slightly horizontally/diagonally through the mud, going from one to the other, slowly working myself out of the grip of the sucking clay. It was a shame that it was only a foot to a foot and a half deep, because I would have loved to have had a bottomless pit of that (actually, I had some places southwest of Kamloops that did have stuff like that which was deeper)! I finally managed to completely extract myself, and smoothed out the surface.
So, I will play it by ear, and if I do find a warmer, cloud-free, smoke-free weekday that I am free (Tuesday, Sept 27'th?), it would be nice to enjoy one final adventure in a season that started frustratingly late due to a persistent La Niña. I just hope that if I can go, then on that day no one plans on using the entrance to my sideroad for doing target practice again.