Written October 2016 and subsequently published in Backpacking Light Magazine
Vleis are marshy clearings often crisscrossed by streams and are commonly found throughout the Adirondacks. Ever since I first traversed this region, I have developed a healthy respect for these wetlands. They were the most similar thing to quicksand that I had encountered, and I had developed the not-altogether-unreasonable fear of crossing one in the dark and finding myself plunged deep into the muck, never to be heard from again. Now I found myself off-trail in the Adirondacks, balanced on a tussock in one of these vleis with a dozen braided, muddy river channels directly in my path.
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