Quicksand?

My interest in the Yellowstone River was piqued by another thread on this forum, so I Googled a map of the river. I followed the map all the way from Yellowstone Lake to the Missouri River in North Dakota. What I noticed was that there were a lot of sandy beaches and sandy islands along the entire route. It appears that several sections of the river actually change course through time because of the sandy soil conditions. Then I got to wondering if anyone here, who has waded sections of the Yellowstone, ever experienced any quicksand. I got stuck in quicksand one time on the Little Spokane River near Elk Washington while bowfishing for Northern Pike Minnows. I actually had to abandon one leg of my rubberized hip waders, then pull it out by hand. Had I not stepped out of the wader, there is no telling how deep it would have gone. We laughed about it afterward, but it was actually quite frightening. So, has anyone here ever been caught in quicksand before? Especially on the Yellowstone?

I got into some quicksand on the Weeki Wachee River is Florida. A canoe with a young family aboard flipped and we were helping gather their belongs. One of there bags got caught in a fallen tree at a sharp bend in the river. I jumped out of my kayak to retrieve the bag when I landed in the quicksand that was being roiled by the current against the bank. I immediately went up to my waist. Fortunately, I had my kayak and the fallen tree to hold onto. I ended up having to let my kayak go, hold on to the tree with one arm and work my legs out with the other hand. I was able to climb along the fallen tree back to the bank. I was with several other people who retrieved the kayak, but if I had been by myself without the tree to hold onto, I don't know what would have happened.

Several years ago I was on the Green River in Utah below Flaming Gorge. We had hiked down Red Creek to the river and were returning up the canyon following the creek rather than on the trail. I was climbing up a narrow, rocky slot when I slipped and fell over backwards, landing on my back in the creek. When I started to sit up I found I had landed on quicksand. Each time I tried to get some purchase to get myself up my arm would sink into the sand. Finally was able to "swim" on my back to firmer ground and stand up. It was a scary couple of minutes.

I have found a few soft spots along the Skagit. Never really got to stuck.

I am wondering if any of our Alaskan members have stories of people getting stuck in the sand along the coast line up there. I remember seeing signs along Turnagain Arm warning people to stay off the mud flats below the high tide mark and hearing storys of people getting stuck in the mud with a Bore Tide coming in. I guess some did not survived. Scary stuff.

Turnagain Arm (Cook Inlet right next to Anchorage) has some history with the stuff, espcially the ones where people did not make it... One poor guy was badly stuck and the helicopter that arrived to pull him out, pulled him in half, instead.

The silt here is made of small flakes that orient themselves as flat little linked bridges and as long as one keeps moving the ground seems very firm and solid. A little agitation however and water works up into the bridges lubricating the little plates and liquifying them. (thixotropic is the term and it is exactly why ketchup needs to be stirred to get it moving, yet flows easily once agitated)

A very sad story happened some years back at the head of Turnagain Arm when a young military couple on 4-wheelers decided to run across the mud flats to go gold panning. In crossing a creek bed below the tide line the wife got stuck and when she got off the machine she REALLY got stuck. The husband went for help and the Girdwood Fire Department showed up as the tide was coming in. They could not free her though the had compressed air to blow into the mud in an attempt to dehydrate it. In the end the tide got too high and the firemen could only leave her with a breathing tube. She did not make it. IIRC she was just 19.

There are other stories, but that should convince anyone to keep off those beaches... A couple weeks ago we had the largest bore tides of the year and there were wind surfers, surfers, kayakers, and more out there riding it...

I've never encountered quicksand and cannot vouch for this. But I recall reading once that quicksand does not drag you down and, if you assume the same position as when floating in water and then backstroke swim out, you can survive. I assume that the faster you flop on your back and start backstroking your way out, the easier the task will be.

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Originally Posted by oldfrat

I've never encountered quicksand and cannot vouch for this. But I recall reading once that quicksand does not drag you down and, if you assume the same position as when floating in water and then backstroke swim out, you can survive. I assume that the faster you flop on your back and start backstroking your way out, the easier the task will be.

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I understand that if you are by yourself that's a viable option. I also understand that depending on the viscosity of the mire, it might not work. That being said, it's probably your best option.

All of the sand that I've waded on in the lower Yellowstone has been pretty stable.

I can't remember any particular problem with walking and wading in the sand on the more than 100 miles of the upper Yellowstone that I fish. However, you are right about there being lots of sandy beaches, etc. all along the river, but I don't think it's much different from walking along an ocean beach -- some places it's quite firm, and other places it is soft and loose, but I've not seen anything akin to quicksand.

What I do experience, however, is that more often than not the boat launches that we use on the Yellowstone are sandy, and/or steep and sandy, and you better have a good 4-wheel drive vehicle, or you aren't getting out of them. It can also be very windy a lot of times along the Yellowstone, and the blowing sand can be a nuisance. (The movie "Where the Yellowstone Goes" had one scene where the group that floated the Yellowstone pitched their tents, and camped on a sandy beach. When the winds came up the sand blew into everything, practically by the bucket full.)

The quicksand you are likely to encounter and the Turnagain Arm are two different things. The Turnigain Arm is fine glacial silt that is flooded every high tide. It is a sticky muck that you can't pull yourself out of. The quicksand that a fisherman is likely to encounter is sand that is roilled by the current to form a deep hole of sand and water. It is the combination of the current and the sand that can get you. If it was still water you could just float out on your back, but that may not be an option when you are stuck on the bottom and the current is pushing you down.

You are very unlikely to get into the movie type quicksand, where you are running though the jungle and just step in it. What you need to watch is places where back eddies are formed over sandy bottoms.