It was a staple of many B movies, cartoons, and TV shows in the 60s and 70s; now quicksand appears more often in memes by the 50-something crowd on social media.
PRE’s Annette Weston set out to discover whether quicksand is something to be worried about in eastern North Carolina or GenX was set up to believe it would be a much bigger deal in adulthood than it is in reality.
Naturalist Jerry Reynolds is the Head of Outreach for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Although he has spent thousands of hours trekking through the wilds of North Carolina over many years, Roberts said he’s never encountered quicksand.
"Apparently there are some legitimate instances of quicksand,” he said, “I think it's primarily when there's an underground spring welling up ... and if you get in that situation where the sand soil is more of an oiled mass, it can be quicksand.”
However, he has run into his fair share of boot-sucking mud. "They can be tough to pull your foot -- well, actually, it's easy to pull your foot out, but sometimes it's hard to pull your foot and your boot out so your boot gets stuck in the mud,” he explained.
And it’s thick muck that Reynolds said can be found it eastern North Carolina’s tidal marshes.
"The mud and muck in a tidal marsh is notorious for sucking your boot or shoes off, and some people will explore those areas with tennis shoes. If you do that and you step in the wrong place, you're probably not going to retrieve your tennis shoe unless you're willing to put your arm all the way up to your shoulder in mud to pull it out.”
Reynolds said, unlike the scenes from cartoons and television shows and movies of yesteryear, it’s not deep enough that a person could disappear under the muck, and those that step into it will just get dirty. Probably really dirty.
“A walk or trudge of shame out if you get in the mud or the muck,” he said, “Actually, you know, that's not really a walk of shame. That's sort of a badge of honor. That you really were in the field and were giving it all, all you could to find whatever you're looking for.”
In eastern North Carolina, off the beaten path, Reynolds said there are many places hikers and nature enthusiasts may run into boot-sucking mud.
"You've got a lot of nice wetlands and Cypress swamps to explore. Look at some of the areas in the Croatan (National Forest.) Brices Creek, just South of New Bern is another good place,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said the region’s coastal marshes, cypress forests, and wetlands aren’t always as appreciated as they should be.
"Eastern North Carolina is blessed to have a lot of great wetlands and the wetlands in the past have sort of been considered wastelands, but they are of extremely rich and biodiversity of plants and animals, and they're very critical to our wildlife and ultimately to our life too,” he said, “So, I encourage people not to let the threat of getting dirty or getting their boots stuck in the mud deter them from exploring.”
In the modern world, quicksand is often the subject of memes posted on social media from the GenX crowd that laugh about how their generation thought, because of what they watched when they were kids, that getting trapped in it would be a much bigger deal in their later adult years.
