I was reading a swell story about a pair of Bay Area thru-hikers who’ve trekked all the major North American trails (www.gottawalk.com is their Web site). The story opens with one of them getting stuck in quicksand in southern Utah and it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what quicksand is, much less how to get unstuck from it.

A quick google search unearthed this excellent series of pages at howstuffworks.com. Turns out it’s not the evil, man-sucking menace portrayed in all those cowboy movies. Actually it’s just a natural phenomenon resulting from sand being so drenched with water that it loses its ability to support weight. Step on it and you sink in.

Turns out, though, that the human body is less dense than quicksand so you can float in it — if you have the presence of mind not to panic and flail about like recently beheaded farmyard fowl. The more you move, the faster you sink.

When you try pulling your leg out of quicksand, you are working against a vacuum left behind by the movement, according to The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. The authors of the book advise you to move as slowly as possible in order to reduce viscosity. Also, try spreading your arms and legs far apart and leaning over to increase your surface area, which should allow you to float.

Sorta deflates the quicksand-as-villain theme of so many Westerns but then again, they are works of fiction.