By Marc J. Elzenbeck
As with many great ideas, it started with a Ford Bronco and a keg of beer. On a Friday night before the Strawberry Festival, several earth-movers and excavators were gathered around a job site after knocking off work. They happened to be parked near an old peat bog pond west of town, a little north of Island Center Forest. Of indeterminate depth, craggy, and treacherous, the pond had an island in the middle. None of them had been out to it before, nor had anyone in collective memory. At that time the bog was on private property, and being a hot year, the water level was somewhat lower than normal.
When they ran out of a shared six pack, one of them (who to this day remains a prominent Island business owner) announced, “I brought a keg. But if you want any, you’ll have to get it out there!” He climbed into his rig and gunned its 302 V8 straight into the mire, almost swamped and stalled, but established a channel through and somehow climbed up and out to plant the keg on top of the island.
It is said that some made it out there and some did not; details are murky, but all agree the keg was drained before dawn. And it is a fact that, on this unofficial 40th-or-so anniversary of the Mud Bog, the inaugural Bronco is still well-maintained by its owner.
These OGs were all Tonka Truck types. They operated heavy machinery, graded roads, blew up stumps, rocks, and took down cliffs with dynamite. So their 4-wheeling challenge was not just vanity, but served professional purposes. Word spread, and other parties modified their Fords, Chevys, Jeeps, Rams, and Harvesters to make them more swamp-capable. By the third year, it had reportedly grown to about a dozen vehicles. Then it exploded.
Meanwhile, in other mud bog locations “monster trucks” were starting to become a real craze. One truck named “Bear Foot” filled arenas across the United States and was featured in a ZZ Top music video. On Vashon, the muddy trend was timed to collide head-on with the regional Grunge movement. Garage musicians clambered up onto flat-beds and plugged their instruments and microphones into outdoor generators.
In later years, if a suitable location lacked enough water, the Vashon Fire Department would volunteer to pump in enough to top it off. While never official, by its heyday in the late 1990s, the Mud Bog was tacitly sanctioned and had non-stop live music, would host scores of vehicles, hundreds of spectators at once, and thousands of attendees over a weekend.
Gradually, concerns over the booming noises, property liabilities, wayward teenagers, and environmental impacts started to slow the Mud Bog’s growth. Some former attendees joke that their experiences helped give birth to what is now known as VARSA, but it was a generally wholesome and fun gathering. On the videos you’ll find on our web site, you’ll see happy little kids drenched head-to-toe in mud, stranded vehicles being towed out, and people cleaning off mud with jugs of water. You’ll only once hear a young-ish person directly in front of the camera ask a friend, “Did you bring any beer?” (Her friend replies, “No.”)
There is one actual monster truck in the background, presumably visiting from off island, its tires a couple of feet taller than a man standing directly to its right.
King County acquired the traditional site and officially closed it to disappointed Mud Boggers in 2012. Revivals have since been rumored on private farms and forests. Should such fun and hi-jinks better attract anonymity, or disclosure? It can be hard to tell. We face choices every day, ones that require discernment. While investigating this article, I came across the location of this year’s Mud Bog, and was asked to not reveal it. I just hope to spot some capable drivers and vehicles coming through the four-way on Strawberry Festival weekend, drenched in brown from roof to wheel.
