Thanks I really had an angle riding double or something that is for sure!

Soft is relative, yeah they hurt like hell and I am pretty scratched up all around, but we could have fallen on the river/lava rocks which would have broken my leg for sure. At least with the tumbleweeds they kept my leg from getting crushed.

Oh and the "steep bank" was a straight up cliff, but the tumble weeds made it look like the rest of the bank around it, they were stacked up like on a hillside.