It wasn't quick sand (I think) but it was worse. Crossing 9 Standards Rigg, England's Insular Divide, just E. of Kirkby Stephen (and 2000' above it) on the Coast to Coast Walk across the island, I encountered a horrible swamp or peat bog. There was no boardwalk across it (others had this convenience) so I tried to jump it--with my pack--fell short, landed in bottomless brown muck and sank to my waist. Fortunately the chap, met on the train (the famous Settle to Carlisle Railway) I was hiking with, pulled me out or I might still be up there, trying to reach Keld, the next town. It was the end of my Jockey briefs and probably the shorts I was wearing over them. (the CCW was great, stopping in towns every night (except Claybank Top, a B&B on a lonely farm), but some parts of it could have used improvement including locked gates I had to climb over. At least England doesn't have our horrible NO TRESPASSING signs; instead they have a wonderful "Right to Roam").
Roger Williams, Boulder, Colorado.
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