"I Thought I Knew Mud"

We call it Gumbo Road. It is a two-mile swath that runs the length of our hunting lease and divides the property into its eastern and western halves. Most days, when the sun is out and it’s dry, this main thoroughfare to all points huntable masks itself as a hard, dry surface suitable for travel in virtually any vehicle. When it’s wet, however, we must do battle with the mud.

I scoffed when the old-timers told me I didn’t know what mud was. Turns out, I only thought I knew mud. I don’t scoff any more.

Six to twelve hours after a decent rain, Gumbo Road’s true colors come out. Blue, gray and green all mix together to form a slimy ooze that resembles the rainbow film of motor oil in a puddle in the grocery store parking lot. Once wet, the otherwise hard surface morphs into a thick, greasy muck that stains and sticks to anything with which it comes into contact. This gumbo mud adheres stronger than epoxy resin and is ten times harder to remove. Impervious to water, it chokes the road for days until it finally dries. Rainwater, incapable of seeping into the ground through the soil, must either pass over the gumbo on its way downhill or wait to evaporate after the sun comes back out.

The ingredient most responsible for the damnable characteristics of gumbo mud, of course, is clay. The higher the clay content, the less it will drain water. The mud on Gumbo Road holds water better than a bath tub.

Driving through – or rather on – the mud on Gumbo Road is roughly analogous to driving on ice without snow tires. Vehicles are simply prisoners of inertia, their steering wheels nothing more than round “Oh, Crap!” handles for hapless drivers mired in the muck.

After embarking on a trip down Gumbo Road when it’s wet, one will notice that the mud immediately covers the tires and transforms them into racing slicks; soon, large, solid chocks of mud gum up the wheel wells and prevent the tires from spinning; finally, if the vehicle has not already slid into the ditch or sunk axle-deep into grimy ruts in the road, the large wall of mud that has formed on the front bumper will become so heavy that the vehicle simply will not be able to move any farther.

At that point the occupants will be forced to get out and walk. Soon they will discover that they grow taller with every step they take, as more and more mud accumulates on the bottoms of their boots. Their feet will get heavier, too, until the muck sucks their boots right off or they cease walking, sit down and wait to be rescued. This choice is a precarious one as well; I’ve heard tales of men being swallowed whole by the gumbo.

Years ago, an older member ventured out into the gumbo one afternoon on his four-wheeler. About half-way down Gumbo Road, his four-wheeler became completely stuck. So he decided to forgo his hunt and walk back to camp. An hour after sundown, another hunter found him embedded up to his knees in the road. He had lost the strength to pull his legs out of the mud anymore, and so decided to stay there – all afternoon – and wait for help.

The mud on Gumbo Road has claimed golf carts, four-wheelers, heavy duty gas utility vehicles, pick-up trucks, tractors, logging trucks and bulldozers. The mud takes on all comers and remains undefeated. Last year the mud made mince-meat out of one those famous electric, all-wheel-drive hunting carts. A-third-of-the-way down Gumbo Road, the driver mashed the accelerator to make it through a curve and the torque created by the mud sheared a one-inch drive shaft and sent the left rear tire into the ditch. The wounded machine slid to a greasy stop about twenty yards later.

We have a saying at the camp. “Respect the mud.” We do. We adapt to it and learn to navigate it. In many ways we have learned to love it, despite its maddening stubbornness and appetite for our vehicles. It is our mud, and only we know how truly formidable it can be. So we keep sloshing and slugging our way through it, because deep in the thick blue gumbo, we’ve learned that memories, like the water, don't evaporate so easily.



(c) Roger Guilian 2008