Well, I went back to my favourite mud hole.
I wanted to try out a new camera so I can stop risking my expensive DSLR to take photos of mud holes. Unfortunately, the alternate camera took such shoddy quality photos they’re not worth retouching and posting, so I don’t have a photo for this post 🙁
The evening started off relatively OK. I got to the hole a little bit early, it was still light outside but getting dark fast… It seemed there was a party happening a little way down the trail… I had to run to shelter several times. I stomped around a bit looking for soft spots, and at one point stepped in a skidder tire rut that was full of water and my foot sunk almost 2 feet into the muddy bottom and could have gone farther still with some work… Well this is great, but there’s too much water… Since I wasn’t comfortable getting started at that point, I devised a plan…
Basically, I started filling in the water hole with dirt from the surrounding area. After hiding from traffic a half dozen times and picking out rocks for 2 hours, what I ended up with was nearly 4 feet of the stickiest, ooziest mud I’d ever had the joy of working with! Future note: Carry a shovel.
Then it started to rain.
It took another hour before I was comfortable enough to relax in my newly crafted mud pool. By this time I was thoroughly soaked and the temperature had dropped noticeably… But I oozed in almost up to my hips and was glad to find it got warmer the deeper I went…
This little oasis remains my current #1 favourite mud park. The guy who’s logging the area drives a skidder around making giant ruts and holes all over the place, and the ground is still saturated from the spring melt. Once you get past the first half foot or so, the soil contains a good concentration of oozy clay mixed with some silty stuff and just a hint of sand…
By the time I got really into it, I was so thoroughly soaked and chilled that even the warm gooey center of the hole wasn’t enough to stop me from shivering the entire time. Hopefully it’ll get warmer soon!
The good news is that with the ground as soppy wet as it is, this hole should remain deep and squishy for at least a month or two, which means I can go back in a few weeks when the evenings are warmer and less rainy. The bad news is that enough people saw my vehicle parked a short walk down the road that I can’t risk them noticing my muddy footprints all over the property and putting two + two together… So I need to park somewhere else and make it a full day journey, which is going to require some planning. Stay tuned!
Also for next time, I will need to bring a shovel. There are some spots that aren’t so terribly close to the road/trail. I’d love to visit the spot during daylight hours when it’s warmest, and not have to worry about hiding all the time. (I came pretty close to getting nailed this time when I didn’t notice headlights coming down the road until it was almost too late.)
Next weekend I have the opportunity to explore a mud pit left behind from a day of mud racing. This particular event allows agricultural tires which have deep wide threads and, by design, really chew through mud. This will be a new experience for me. I’m imagining very deep, very thick slop, but I really have no point of reference, so it should be interesting!
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