Saturday, February 16, 2013

THE Trip, THE Encore' :: The Quartzsite Mud, Err Quicksand

Copyright 2013, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Quartzsite, Arizona, someplace on BLM land, desert land.  On January 25th it rained, and it rained and it rained!  Amount received somewhere a bit over 1 inch.  Record setting amount for that day.  Hey, this IS the desert.  Fact, rain causes flooding, one would think it would just be absorbed into the desert floor, but, not so.  Does not take much rain and you will have puddles and flooding.  What fascinated me was how soft some of the surface was, the rain made quicksand soup.


On January 26th many RVers were leaving the desert, heading on to new adventures. If you had to drive your truck or rig through the sandy areas, you risked getting stuck.  This mess was made by just backing the truck up to that Montana. They had to dig that 4 wheel truck out of the mud and toss rocks in the ruts.


Friends Mina and Bob departing. See that lighter colored area, circle?  That is sand, when wet, you sink into that stuff RIGHT now.  Note, Bob is backing their unit up and is on the black rock floor, NOT sand.  Bob did not get stuck.  We watched and learned.


January 27th, time for Man and I to depart.  The rain stopped well over 24 hours before.  For the most part the puddles are gone, but, those sandy areas are still rather soft.  The tire marks were made from backing Jolly up to Tana for hookup.  Still a bit soft.


Our concern was getting Jolly TO Tana.  Tana was sitting on black rock, but, the pin area was sitting over a softer mix of black rock and sand and in front of Tana was soft sand.  Here we are all hooked up, the desert floor had dried sufficiently that we were able to hookup with no issues.  Moving/backing up slowly was the trick.


Now, don't let me kid you, the desert floor was still soft.  I stood talking to friends and I had muddy shoes, the wet quicksandy stuff just sucked you and your shoes into the mucky dirty stuff.  Black rocks were your friend!  LOL  We used Jolly's 4 wheel drive, slowly backed Tana out.  Once we hit the black rocky areas of the MOC circle we relaxed, home free.

We were prepared to stay on the desert for another night if necessary, giving more time for the muck to dry up.  Alas, we were out and moving, and it was time to head out, this part of the adventure now over.   It was an interesting experience, no harm done and we learned much, like stay on the black rock!




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