Our Saturday Swim

Let me just preface this post by saying 'Holy Crap.'

Earlier last week Steff and I had a great idea. In the interest of training in as close to a real life environment as we could get, we decided to escape up to a nearby reservoir for a quick swim.

So, Saturday afternoon we loaded up the kiddies, took them to play at my sister's house, and we headed up to Tibble Fork Reservoir, at the top of American Fork Canyon.



It was a beautiful day. The lake was surrounded by fishermen, families hiking, horseback riders, and other recreators. We arrived, surveyed the surroundings, and decided our best point of attack would be on the high side, where the river feeds into the lake. We threw on our wetsuits, scurried down the hill, and walked to the bank where we would wade in. And this is where the pain began....

As Steff and I made our way out to the point where it was deep enough to start swimming, really there was only one phrase that was rolling over and over in my mind: "What the crap, what the crap, what the crap."

I decided to be tough and take the plunge. Oh good grief. It was so cold, it felt like I'd just set my face in a pot of boiling water... that was freezing. I mean, I'm talking pain, severe pain. I got out about 100 yards and I was dying. I can't really speak for Steff, but I was having thoughts of my body locking up and sinking like a rock to the bottom of No-nibble-tibble.

In case you're wondering how cold it was, here's a picture of Tibble Fork, as we experienced it on Saturday (it didn't look like this, but it felt like this looks):



So for the next 40 minutes, we slowly made our way from the river to the opposite side of the lake, and then back. After about 15 minutes, everything not under the neoprene, was numb - dead to the world. We completed a lap (about 1/2 mile) and decided we'd had enough. We'd accomplished what we'd set out to do.

As we were driving away, we started looking around and realized there was snow, really close to the lake. I can't imagine that the snow had been gone for too long up there... and that quaint little river bubbling into the lake was most definitely direct glacier runoff.

To sum up: cold. Cold cold cold. Don't swim in mountain lakes early in the season. They are cold. I don't care what anyone says - cold.