Quicksand has been one of the great movie villains of the past fifty years, right up there with sharks and haunted houses. Turns out the threat was oversold. Quicksand is simply sand and water, a mixture that looks like solid ground until you put weight on it, then behaves like soup. According to Scientific American, struggling makes the mix looser, which is why panicking sends you deeper instead of freeing you.
The important part, especially for anyone with spring training over and a western road trip on the calendar, is what happens when you stop fighting. Research shows the human body is buoyant enough that you cannot sink past roughly lung height. The genuine danger is getting stuck for hours and exhausting yourself. Professional guide Matt Bloomfield learned that firsthand last year when he sank to his chest at Grand Staircase Escalante in Utah. He escaped by leaning back, flattening out, and army-crawling. If you are ever caught, he said, calming down and spreading your weight is what works.
Closer to the action, a quicksand alert is active just south of there at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, where dropping Lake Powell levels are exposing ground that has been underwater for years. More exposed ground means more chances to find this stuff. Rangers say the answer is straightforward: stay calm, lean back, crawl out, and think twice about going alone. Have you ever run into terrain that surprised you on a hike? Tell us where and what you did.
