Mud season comes to Maine

WATERVILLE, Maine (CN) — Maine is in the midst of its fifth season: mud.

Around early to mid-spring every year, a combination of weather and soil factors turn the state’s dirt roads, hiking trails, backyards and cow pastures into a muddy mess. Mainers call it mud season.

Many Mainers dread its arrival. Others, including the 600-plus people who participated in last Sunday’s annual Dirty Dog Mud Run at Thomas College in this central Maine city, embrace it — sliding, crawling and rolling around in the glorious mud.

“I like to play in it,” a mud-splattered Josh O’Keefe said after completing the five kilometer, 15-obstacle course that features plenty of mud. “It brings you back to being a kid, [with] not a care in the world.”

O’Keefe, 43, is a teacher in rural Maine. He takes part in four or five mud runs each year and also likes to tool around in the muck in his all-terrain vehicle. He used to go mudding in a big-wheeled lifted Jeep, often getting stuck in the mud up to the floorboards. 

On Sunday, he was covered in mud from head to toe, including his bushy beard. “I love it,” he beamed.

Mud season, which runs roughly from mid-March through April, is not unique to Maine — but the state does happen to excel at it.

It’s that time of year when cars get swallowed up on muddy roads, shoes get sucked right off feet, and parents give thanks for mud rooms. The gravel and dirt roads and driveways that dominate rural Maine turn into muddy, rutted messes.

Towns close designated roads to heavy trucks, as the soft muddy soil weakens pavement foundations. And when tens of thousands of people descended on rural Maine for last week’s total solar eclipse, one local police chief issued a warning to visitors: Stay on paved roads, or risk getting stuck in the mud.

Mud season is brought on through a combination of melting snowpack, spring rains and the silt and fine-sand soils that are prevalent in Maine, said Aaron Gallant, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maine in Orono.

Compounding the issue, he said, are the freeze-thaw cycles that have become more frequent in recent years as winters have gotten warmer. When there’s a lot of moisture in the ground, it expands and contracts with temperature fluctuations, leading to muddier mud seasons.

Given recent weather conditions (excessive rainfall, lots of freeze-thaw cycles and an early April snowstorm) this year’s mud season has the makings of being a doozie.

“What’s happening more often in recent years is we’re having more freeze-thaw cycles,” Gallant said. That “further weakens the soil and results in more mud, as well as potholes.”

Mainers for the most part simply shrug off mud season and take it in stride. It’s what humorist and storyteller Tim Sample describes as the state’s culture of celebrating adversity. 

There’s an old saying in Maine that if you can’t withstand the winters, you don’t deserve the summers. The same can be said of mud season, Sample said.

“In that ‘celebrate adversity’ category, I would put mud season and black flies right up there,” Sample added. Like lighthouses and lobster rolls, mud season is just a part of Maine culture. 

Sample worked as a regular correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning from 1993 to 2004. In one of his regular “Postcard from Maine” segments, he covered mud season. 

In the segment, a junkyard owner in rural Maine tells a story about his wife’s car getting mired up to the axles in mud while driving out the driveway to get to work. 

“He just said, ‘No problem,’ and went and got a giant forklift that lifts up junk cars,” Sample recalled. He “lifted up her car out of the mud, drove her out to the road and dropped her off so she could get to work.”

Sample likes to tell a mud season story from the 19th century, in which a farmer sees what looks like a fedora blowing slowly down his muddy driveway. When he goes to snag the hat, he’s surprised to see his neighbor’s face peering up at him, his nose just above the mud.

“He goes, ‘Kinda rough going, ain’t it?’” Sample said is his deadpan Maine accent. “The neighbor says, ‘No, not so bad, I still have my hoss [horse] under me.’”

At Thomas College last weekend, more than 600 runners took part in the 8th annual Mud Run. 

Many wore shirts with sayings like “Muddy Mainer” and “We Make Mud Fun.” Proceeds from the event go to a student activity fund.

Mud Run organizer Jim Delorie, an assistant vice president at the college, remembers his parents having to park 100 yards from their house when he was young because their dirt driveway was too muddy to park any closer. His parents put out wood planks for him and his siblings to walk over when arriving home from school.

The Mud Run, he said, is a way to have fun during a dirty time of the year. 

“I think people in Maine love mud season. We joke about it being our fifth season of the year,” he said. “To be able to get out here in early spring and make some fun of it — [to] run in the mud and not just talk about vehicles getting stuck in the mud — people enjoy that. They get a kick out of it.”

Ross Sirois, 48, was among those at the event. 

Sirois embraces mud season. “It represents the change out of winter,” he said. “I’m not a fan of winter. It’s too long.”

His son, 27-year-old Ross Waters, isn’t so crazy about it. His car recently got stuck in his muddy driveway. Temperatures dropped overnight, and his car froze into the mud. He had to wait until the temperatures rose the next day so he could get it towed out.

“I dread mud season a bit, but that’s because my driveway isn’t paved,” Waters said.

Kendra Veilleux, 30, said she’s always enjoyed mud. She has fond memories of being a softball catcher and getting muddy at home plate when she was growing up.

For the Mud Run on Sunday, Veilleux sported a shirt with a simple message: “Just Here to Get Dirty.” 

“I could bathe in it,” she said before her race. “It’s just mud. It’s not going to hurt you.”

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