Ice diving...

[babs13]

What is involved in ice diving, and any special gear to consider? What is exactly ice diving?

[cardiver]

What is involved in ice diving, and any special gear to consider? What is exactly ice diving?

You need a chainsaw to cut a hole in the ice and yiu are usually tethered to someone on the surface.
Nice to see your name on the board, Babs!

[CaptnJack]

Its not really practical in the PNW as our accessible lakes don't freeze over well enough to be "for sure" safe to walk on. Breaking through, even with a drysuit on, would be a dangerous disaster, and essentially a "rescue" scenario. Our lakes high enough to be safe to walk on are snowed in and miles from a point where you can drive to. Ice diving is a popular off season past time in the midwest and Canada. Its fun in small doses but there's generally not alot to see in freshwater lakes, ponds, and quarries.

Minimum scuba gear is a redundant gas supply (pony or doubles) as regulator freezeups are much more common in freshwater <40F. And either a tether or reel & cave training - there are advocates of both approaches depending on the site/agency/training/background.

One of the Oregon shops/instructors offers an ice diving course (forget his name), but its held over in Idaho where there are actually lakes frozen enough to safely access.

[spatman]

(babs is living in washington, DC these days...)


hey babs,

the wiki has a decent overview of ice diving:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_diving

[Sockmonkey]

Icediving? There's a PADI cert for that.

A bunch of nutballs from my old (now closed) LDS in Boston diving a pond on the cape:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkZavMuEZuA[/youtube]

-Eric

[CaptnJack]

(babs is living in washington, DC these days...)

Not really cold enough consistently there either. Try Ohio, western NY, Mass. or maybe western parts of PA, someplace where there are ice fishermen will have ice divers.

[60south]

Or Colorado! I did it at Twin Lakes above Leadville, 12000ft high-altitude ice diving. Whoa doggies, that was fun!

Breaking through, even with a drysuit on, would be a dangerous disaster, and essentially a "rescue" scenario.

Yeah, but there are exceptions.

I've done a lot of 'gumby suiting' on rotten sea ice in survival suits (I'm sure you know about those). For readers who are unfamiliar with them, they're basically dry-suits without any scuba gear. Without tanks or weights, you float like a cork and can scramble up on thin ice -- or fall through, laughing. Actually kind of educational as well as fun.

I would not advocate that someone inexperienced simply hop in a survival suit and run out into the middle of a frozen body of water until they fall in. Bad idea. Rather, go with someone experienced, stay close to shore, and gradually 'get a feel' for the limitations of the ice, the survival suit, and yourself. Done right, it's a blast.

[Tangfish]

Are you going ice diving with your new tropical fins?

[CaptnJack]

Are you going ice diving with your new tropical fins?

Barefoot!!

[ljjames]

There is actually some ice diving in eastern washington (state). I don't remember who ran it, but it was an annual event/class run by a NAUI instructor for many years..... before global warming i guess...

[CaptnJack]

There is actually some ice diving in eastern washington (state). I don't remember who ran it, but it was an annual event/class run by a NAUI instructor for many years..... before global warming i guess...

It would have been good back in December, but January's been one of the warmest on record.

[Pinkpadigal]

One of our CD's ran an ice diving class in Idaho last weekend. I haven't see the photos, but a bit cold for me.

[CaptnJack]

One of our CD's ran an ice diving class in Idaho last weekend. I haven't see the photos, but a bit cold for me.

Long drive in the wrong direction just to get wet. Not so far for airsix I suppose.

[loanwolf]

Ice Diver is just a specialty class that all the agencies teach, shops here that is another story. You are entering a overhead environment so you have to know what you are doing or you will get lost and you cannot surface just anywhere you have to get back to your entry point. So you also have to know how to run lines. It is great I love Ice Diving. Those of us who have lived in Eastern Washington that is all we have to do in winter there is ice dive. I am pretty sure that Spokane Dive runs Ice Diving classes and would be willing to meet you.

http://www.spokanescuba.com/

Depending on whether or not we cool down again Eastern Washington has always had great Ice diving. Banks, Blue lakes, Moses Lake any of them with decent road access as we do not get a lot of snow over there. The I-90 corridor lakes are divable sometimes but like what Jack they get lots of snow and sometimes can be a pain in the ass to clear out to get to the ice. Last December we had great Ice diving right here in Seattle. Silver Lake had 6" of Ice on it, just bust a hole at the dock and you’re ready to dive. The smaller foot hill's lakes at higher altitudes had a lot more than that. If the ice is too thin to walk on find a Dock, rocky area, Sand, or a log next to shore to enter in on so you don’t stir up the silt. Just like Ice Climbing in Washington conditions have to just right for west side climbing. But east side is usually always there. It should cool down again as it has the last few years. Right now the higher lakes in Eastern Washington should still be frozen now. Most of the time the bays and coves on the Columbia River are also good spots to go, If there is ice there is usually little current. But high lakes are much nicer as they usually have trees and stuff to see in them.

Some regulators work better than others when you are Ice Diving so that is something else you should look at. It is not good to have your regulator freeze up on you during the dive. And I have always found it best to fill my tanks with OCA air as it is much drier than most shop air. Other than those few things and training you are ready to go and it can be fun. Very surreal.

[loanwolf]

Here is a vid it is one of the best I have seen this year of Ice Diving. This one is great as they are working but it shows him running lines when they leave the fixed line and recovering it.

http://vimeo.com/8748260

[ljjames]

I like this one personally....


http://vimeo.com/8779582

[loanwolf]

I like this one personally....


http://vimeo.com/8779582

So you like tight places I see.

[babs13]

Are you going ice diving with your new tropical fins?

Tropical fins are for the Caribbean. Wheeeheeee! So N2 deprived, I am.

I need a local fix, and the diving around here, meaning within an hour is total crapola.....and as I've been told, perhaps suck on laughing gas would be a better fix. Lol. So decent diving around here in the winter months is very cold, and involve lake diving ~2 hours or more away. This would be in Pennsylvania, or up in West Virginia. It has been cold here, and for awhile the Potomac which runs between DC and Virginia was pretty frozen....birds were chilling atop ice.

Thanks for the info Spats, Hulamonkey, Captain, Laura, loanwolf, 60 and everyone else! Btw- cool videos.

[WellEquippedDiver]

I did ice dive training up the columbia gorge at a private lake north of Stabler, WA in January. Most often it's done with 1 diver and tender with 2-3 standby divers and tenders ready to go out via there own tethers if something goes wrong.

A redundant air source is a must. Everyone was using a pony bottle, but I used a stage bottle which made more sense to me in case you free flowed on your backup. I took off my primary 2nd stage and just used my 2ndary on my necklace, which worked well. The idea is that you won't be donating air and it eliminates one potential free flow on your back gas.

If the lake isn't totally frozen you could put in from shore, or use a chainsaw to cut a triangle shaped hole. We did both, the triangle was better because you had more room to lay out your ropes, but it would depend on ice thickness. Having someone knowledgeable in climbing equipment and knots would be handy, and ice screws work great for anchoring tethers. Diver to tender communication was accomplished via line tugs, and worked well, a good tender could guide your search based on where he thought you were. A line that floats is better than climbing rope, and frog kicking is a good way to tangle your foot...

We had special ice harnesses, but anyone diving a harness and wing likely could just use that. You just want to be sure to have a strong connection in case you give 4 tugs and have your tender pull you out before you drown :biggrin: .

There are tons of ice dive opportunities in Washington if you head east a little bit. I'd advise someone near Seattle to get on I-90 and head east. Anything beyond Snoqualmie pass would likely be iced up most of the winter. When I lived in Ellensburg we regularly would walk out on iced lakes, some even ice fished. Pretty neat, being that it's like 2 hours from downtown Seattle.

The OR guy who teaches ice stuff is Phil Graf (omnidive@gmail.com). They teach it in Klamath Falls, OR or McCall, Idaho.