Wetlook World Forum

> > near Shelter #1. Clinton Lake is in Kansas near Lawrence 30 miles west of kansas city.

We've started doing this this weekend and we'll continue till it gets too cold in the fall. Already there are at least 3 people from around here who are interested, maybe with a bit more than two days notice more people will show up... this is going to go on each Saturday at 10am so people can fit it in their skeds and plan ahead for it... Both sexes are welcome to come, any orientation, whatever - this isn't about sex it's about getting wet and muddy in clothes and having a good time.

Here's the first report:

     So I showed up at Shelter #1 at Clinton Lake, wearing skintight Levis 501s, a black longsleeve t-shirt, a pair of trainers and a belt and nothing else. I showed up at 10:03am, and took off at 10:25am. Since no one else showed, I didn't leave a map or a note or anything. The forecast was for heavy rain showers and maybe thunderstorms, but I didn't see any rain anywhere, just a cloudy sky. I decided to go off and have some fun, anyhow, even if no one else showed up.  

     First I drove over to Rockhaven Park, but when I got there, there were a bunch of campers there and it looked like a pretty steep hike down to the lake, so I decided to try the Rock Creek Access Point, a bit farther down the road. It was pretty much deserted, just a couple of people fishing. The roads were all dry, and towards the lake, where 4x4s have cut up the mud into huge ruts, the mud was dry enough to stand on. Towards the lake there was 'quickmud', about a six-foot stretch between the dried out area and the lake. One step on this stuff, and it took a couple of minutes of effort to get out of it. I went to a gravel beach, but there was the same mud there. I went over to the boat ramp and waded in the lake knee deep, and it was really cold, too cold for me. The water temp yesterday was 47 F, and it felt like it.

Then I went to another wet place, or usually wet place, and it was pretty dry too. I decided to try the Wakarusa Creek area. It's pretty shallow, and the water temp should be closer to the air temp (today, mid-60s F). I drove over, parked the car, and walked down the path. Eventually I got down to the level of the creek, and waded in to cross over to a small island. Everything was really muddy here, especially close to the island, so I sank knee deep in yellow creamy mud when I tried to get up on the island. I messed around here for a while and got my levis wet up to the crotch, and muddy almost everywhere else. After about 20 minutes, I decided to go back to my car, so I started walking slowly back up the muddy trail, and eventually reached the top, which was an area planted in grass.

When I was climbing up the trail, the sky was getting darker and the wind died down, and by the time I got to the top, it began to rain, lightly at first, so I put my camera in a Ziploc bag and just hung out in the grassy area waiting for the rain to come. It started to really come down hard, so I just lied down on my back and let the rain soak me. I rolled over a bunch of times in the wet grass, and after this my jeans were nice and shiny wet. It was a good thing I was wearing a polypro undershirt, otherwise I would have gotten really cold. I played around in the rain for a while, and then I drove over to another spot where there had been good puddles before.

I could see from the car where there were a bunch of puddles at this last place, so I parked the car, locked it, put the key in my jeans, saw there were no other people around, picked the best puddle (about 8 inches deep), sat down, rolled over, and rolled over again and sat up, and now my jeans were streaming with water. I jumped in three or four more puddles like this. Most of them were muddy puddles, with a fine yellow-gray mud which made my jeans still slick and shiny while I was walking around. I walked around and explored some more, and finally found a huge mud puddle with a couple of feet of water in it, so I jumped right in making a huge splash, and sinking into light grey mud up to my knees, stood up and fell backwards, and then rolled around and then stood up again, and now my jeans were coated with this fine grey mud. I sat down and washed most of it off, then got out of the mudhole and smeared this fine slick mud all over my levis. I played around doing this for about 20 minutes, then got my camera and took some pics of my jeans and the mudhole, then got a towel, wiped off some of the mud, and drove home.

When I got home, I toweled off most of the rest of the mud, then got in the shower and hosed my jeans down pretty thoroughly with the shower set on stream - nice warm water, which warmed me up since I was pretty cold from outdoors. Oh yeah, I'm still wearing the jeans as I write this.

So for everyone who didn't show up, there's always next weekend...

Send me mail at wet6surfer@yahoo.com if you want to come along. Here in Kansas if you want to get wet outdoors, you're going to get muddy in the process so you might as well enjoy that, too.

-----------------

BTW, three other people from around here have expressed an interest in this, so maybe we can all get together next Saturday. The meeting place at Shelter #1 is just an easily found place - it's not necessarily a good place to go mudding. A couple of days of good rain, or just one day and we go out when it's raining, and there's at least two places with good creamy mud. One of them is near (but not at) the dog walking area which is near Wakarusa Creek, where you turn to go fishing at the outlet of the dam, and another is at Rock Creek Access Point, about 1000 yards past the junction of Rtes 1029 and 458 on the south side of the lake. There are lots of other places besides these. In addition you can go ATVing at a couple of other places and get good mud, at least from the tracks I've seen (and the muddy ATVs coming from the general direction of the places)

If it weren't so cold out (45 F, forecasted high of 51 F) I'd go out again today - the mud should be great. If we get rain a month from now like we got today, and the temps are 15 F warmer, that's great mudding weather (air temps at least 65 F). Also the lake temps should be coming up. Right now the lake is 47 F and feels like it - it was too cold to go more than knee deep for a very short time, certainly no good for swimming (at least not for me).

The camping places at the North Shore park tend to be pretty dry, with a rocky beach. If you want to get wet there, you just have to go in the water and swim - there's really no mudding - and you can wade out a long way from shore and the water will be only crotch deep, which is fun on a day when there are lots of waves and wind but boring otherwise.

I intend to do this meet-up every Saturday at 10:00am for the rest of the spring and summer until it gets too cold in the fall. Remember, the place at Shelter #1 is just for meeting up - it's not necessarily where we go to get wet/muddy.