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To: BBell

One landscape that should be included will actually kill you while you are just standing there. Those are the glacial silt “beaches” around Anchorage, Alaska and environs.

When the tide is out, they just look and act like typical gray sand. You can stand and walk on them just fine. But when the tide comes back in, it does so underneath your feet, and from “solid ground”, you suddenly plunge downward three feet into thick, sandy chocolate pudding. And once you are down, nobody is strong enough to get their legs out of that vacuum.

And then the tide comes in over the top, and you drown.

It happens frequently enough so that there is a helicopter rescue. No, not directly, because if it tried to lift you out it would tear your legs out of their sockets.

But a very, very brave man, with “mud snowshoes”, and a pressurized backpack full of water lands next to you, inserts a tube next to your legs, which sprays enough water down their to hopefully break the suction.

He works quickly, because he has to. And though there are signs and constant warnings everywhere, dumbasses still go for walks on that silt, and die.


12 posted on 01/27/2013 5:06:35 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

Thank you, I had never heard of the glacial silt beaches. It ought to be on this list.


13 posted on 01/27/2013 5:25:16 PM PST by BBell (And Now for Something Completely Different)
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