Muddiest one yet?

[stuartbert two hats]

3 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

97 and 98 were apocalyptic compared to this year. It was muddy, sure, but it didn't put a massive dent in my good times.

Obviously it's been a long time, but I thought it was fairly similar to 1997. The big, big difference was the facilities. So many places to sit made it much easier to cope.

[DeanoL]

I think it's "muddiest ever" in terms of "most amount of mud created". 97/98 are out as the site is half of the size. 2007 is in the running, but it was dry pre-festival there.

[maelzoid]

2 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Obviously it's been a long time, but I thought it was fairly similar to 1997. The big, big difference was the facilities. So many places to sit made it much easier to cope.

 I think you could be right here. The young 'uns won't remember what it was like before the concrete benches and good drainage. Also  this year I did it stout walking boots and a gore-tex jacket - in 97 I had DMs and a leather jacket (twat!)

[found home in 2009]

Been going since 2009. Seen most of the site as bad before, what was draining this year & a first for me was it was muddy from start to finish.

 

Never went to the south east corner before in a muddy year. Was dangerous up there. I got both my wellies stuck and pushed forward by force of crowd so ended up ankle deep in muck in my socks.

 

There is lots of narrow bits everybody is forced through that didn't have woodchips that all became really dangerous. So predictable what would happen, I hope there weren't any serious injuries.

[willutalk]

Not gunna be washing this bag for a while. No matter how many strange looks I get from people on the centre of Bath. The mud's got my memories in it, did you know that? 

[greenArmy12]

8 hours ago, Keithy said:

Concur on the wrong type of mud....found it utterly energy sapping, so thick and claylike. Watery mud, you can just scoot through but my word for the festival is 'trudging'. 

And people stopping for a chat on the metal walkways. Argh!!!

I reached breaking point yesterday when trying to get through a group who were talking and eating their food on the metal  walkways. And those that stop suddenly to look at the menu. I'm sure the last reasonably bad year was 2011 and they seemed more prepared then with wood chippings etc.

[UEF]

There didn't seem to be a lot of woodchip being put down on the route from Pedestrian Gate C to the carparks... jesus.

[arcade fireman]

Apparently Eavis said they'd used up the whole of the regions supply of wood chip. I guess the mud was so voluminous it was hard to cover it all.

[The Nal]

Thought they did a great job considering. Toilets too. Best Ive seen. 

[FuzzyDunlop]

This weekend was proof to me I prefer the wet & muddy festivals. Only issue I have is sunburn. Again. 

Yes I slipped. So what? It's funnier in the mud. Enjoyed it.

[stuartbert two hats]

Mud is good for dancing 

 

[rmcoboy]

Muddiest in terms of difficulty walking around in the claggy shit but it started raining in 2007 on the Friday and just got wetter and wetter. Stooges aside it was a miserable year. Don't get me started on transport chaos this year though...ffs 

[ShuMart]

Having been in 97, 98 and 2007 there is no way this year is the muddiest ever. In 97 I can remember whole market areas between the main stages abandoned as they were knee deep in liquid mud. They had to get the poo sucker to clear the dance tent there was that much liquid mud in it. Even land rover defenders could not get round site!

98 wad no better, can't remember 2007 being that bad.

[Michaels denim shorts]

This year was hard going. I think if i didn't have a day off intoxications on Saturday, & generally paced myself, I'd be close to death now. But I actually feel fine. Just a little tired 

My kids thought the mud was great fun, but it did make getting around the site a lot of effort. & I do have a few blisters

i never made it to Block 9, the park, acoustic or many other places this year so it feels a little incomplete 

could we have an easier October sale this year? 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

I wasn't there in 2007, it sounds like there was a lot more mud, but one thing I know about this year was it was more often than not it was the really thick sticky mud that was hard to walk through. The actual weather wasn't that bad, but it always rained at the wrong time so that it never got a chance to dry, but then it never rained for long enough so it could turn to sloppy mud, which is easier to walk through.

[MadScientist]

The mud was so hard to walk in, i've actually lost half a stone from the exercise!!!

[Nickyboy]

yep 97 was an absolute stinker - muddy, wet and cold.  At least this year the temps were fairly warm, and the torrential downpout occured when most were in tents. It was the week before that totally messed up this years site and I concur about the gluelike nature of the mud this year.  Very tiring

[The Pumpkin King]

Hard work! But the weather was generally okay - sunny for most of it made it easy to park up somewhere and enjoy yourself.

I did bail early on the Sunday as it became unwalkable for me and my bad kness, but has been worse down there and the sun/relatively decent weather kept spirits up

[Rumblestripe]

The hard work required simply to get from one place to another meant I didn't do the SE Corner at all, only saw Arcadia running a few tests and didn't really spend much time "chilling" where you just bimble. Oddly I managed to see just about everyone on my "Clash Finder".

The stickiness of the setting mud was the major PITA, coming away from Earth Wind and Fire I got stuck four or fives but it oddly made it quite fun as I was helped/caught by others and then returned the favour several times. I did wonder what it will be like when that lot sets as it has been churned to a depth of about a foot in some places, there will be rubbish "lost" in it that will be impossible to pick, I'll be watching the webcam to see when we see green grass again on the Pyramid Field!

[incident]

In the really bad areas - T&C, Silver Hayes, etc, then the ground was nearly as bad as 2007 (not worse, though).

But this year was much better overall, as there wasn't as many "bad" areas - there were still parts of the site where the ground didn't cut up that much, whereas in 2007 it was nearly every bloody field.

I've long said that a repeat of 2007 would finish me off, but this wasn't close. Roll on next year.

[Helsbels]

2005 for me personally felt worse for mud after Friday (but maybe that's just because it was my first one) and 2007 was just horrific due to the non stop rain although this kept it sloppier.

Problem for me this year was having to do the walk of death twice through it in the dark from Gate A to South Park. I travelled light bit friends who were first timers (and weren't to know what to expect) brought a lot of heavy stuff resulting in a painful groin strain which then made the whole weekend a lot more tricky. Great to see so many people helping each other out when getting stuck though and it's still the best place on earth :)

[Michaels denim shorts]

49 minutes ago, MadScientist said:

The mud was so hard to walk in, i've actually lost half a stone from the exercise!!!

Yeah one of our group had a Counter thingy which was saying 20,000+ steps a day, and in that mud with the added effort of pulling your boot out with pretty much every step, + a slight lack of square meals, (substituted for other substances) over the week really made a noticeable difference to my belly/chin(s). At least half a stone at a guess 

during this one I also left site to pick up my daughters & again to drop them off the next day, which as it turned out was a massive ball ache

both trips involved some actual running across town, a shuttle and a train each way 

& I hitchhiked to castle Cary train station at 5.45am, with a guy on his way to work. Lifesaver 

[incident]

3 minutes ago, Helsbels said:

2005 for me personally felt worse for mud after Friday (but maybe that's just because it was my first one) and 2007 was just horrific due to the non stop rain although this kept it sloppier.

I'm slightly surprised that 2005 would come into the reckoning for you - I'd hesitate to even call it a muddy festival. Obviously the storm did some damage and if I'd been camped at the bottom of Pennards I wouldn't be so flippant about it, but the first couple days were dry as a bone, and even after the storm early Friday morning most of the site didn't get too bad for too long - it was fairly dry underfoot again by Saturday evening, I ditched the wellies sometime around then and went back to trainers without an issue.

[srb]

Was tough going alright, feet blistered but hey, just an occupational hazard. Pretty tired but a big grin on my face

[whisty]

2007 was worse, can't go back further than that. Only thing worse this year was at no point being able to sit down and get nicely mashed.