Hiker suddenly ‘submerged from my feet to my shoulders’ in Glacier National Park

An easy hike to a lake in Glacier National Park took a turn for the worse when 22-year old Hannah Murphy stepped a few feet off trail to snap a picture.

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Murphy and four friends were hiking 2 miles around Johns Lake, a small lake and wetland area northeast of Lake McDonald, on June 19. Once they reached the lake, the group took an offshoot trail to get a better view. The ground was muddy, but flat, Murphy said, and at least 50 feet from the lakeshore.

Murphy took a step forward, and all of a sudden, the ground beneath her feet gave way. 

“I sank into mud I couldn’t feel the bottom of,” she told SFGATE through Facebook Messenger. “I was submerged from my feet to my shoulders.” 

The only reason she didn’t go farther into the pit was her purse, which acted as a “buoy,” she said. Her arms rested on the top of the mud, not penetrating the thick surface. Murphy couldn’t grab anything, and she had nothing to push off of. “There was nothing for me to put my feet against for me to get myself out,” Murphy said. “If I was alone I would’ve been stuck there for sure.” 

Murphy’s friends laughed at first, which she believes did some good. “I think our laughter prevented panic,” she said. Then they quickly came to Murphy’s aid, grabbing her arms and pulling her back to solid ground. 

Murphy shared her story with SFGATE as a cautionary tale for others who might be hiking in the Johns Lake area and unaware of the hazardous ground. “If I had the opportunity to tell visitors of the park anything, it’d be to not go alone ever,” she wrote. “Having friends with me kept it a funny experience instead of a fatal one.” 

National Park Service spokesperson Jessica Gardetto told SFGATE that Murphy “was almost certainly caught in deep mud, not quicksand.”

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“Despite rumors, there is no known quicksand anywhere in the park,” Gardetto wrote in an email. 

The Johns Lake area of the park, Gardetto said, is “known for muddy pockets where visitors can unexpectedly sink to their knees or even their waist, but people can be pulled out without difficulty, which is different from how true quicksand behaves.” 

Murphy and her family reported the encounter to rangers. Upon further research, they believe the substance Murphy fell into was actually thixotropic mud, or glacial silt. The mud looks solid, but with agitation, becomes increasingly unstable. Similar mud can be found near glaciers and glacially fed rivers in Alaska. Quicksand, on the other hand, forms when sand, air and water mix together, creating a surface that looks much firmer than it is. Quicksand is usually found along riverbanks and beaches at low tide. 

While quicksand isn’t a well-known hazard in Glacier National Park, it has trapped hikers in other national parks. A man sank knee-deep in quicksand in Arches National Park in 2025, requiring help from search and rescue crews to get out safely. In 2019, two hikers were trapped in quicksand in Zion National Park. Quicksand and thixotropic mud can be hard to free yourself from, if stuck deep enough. Experts advise staying calm, avoiding thrashing and calling for help.