A list of lakes. Who's game?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Divedoggie

Divedoggie

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
2,125
Reaction score
286
Location
Ft Collins, CO
# of dives
1000 - 2499
I have the newest version of National Geographic seamless topo maps on my computer, so I did a little research.
In a 50 square mile search from my house in Fort Collins, I found the following lakes. Then I printed the maps out and drove to each of the lakes and walked to the water's edge to look at water clarity, accessibility, potential.

Here is the list from lowest elevation to highest with comments:

Park Creek Res. el. 5870 Beautiful and accessible. Potential 20ft viz. Need permission to dive from the Park Creek Sportsman's Club.

Halligan Res. el. 6300 Beautiful, remote but only an hour away. 4wd access. Need diveyak or inflatible. Potential 20ft viz.

Dowdy Lake, Parvin Lake, Lone Pine Lake, Lady Moon Lake, Lake Nokomis.
el. 8100 These are part of the Red Feather Lakes area with public access. Many more of the lakes in the area are surrounded by private land.
Typical high mtn lakes. Very clear. Potential 50ft viz.

Chambers Lake, Laramie Lake, Twin Lakes, Barnes Meadow Res., Peterson Lake, Trap Lake, Long Draw Res., and Zimmerman Lake. el. from 9000 to 10,495. All of these lakes are in the Cameron Pass area. Some are accessible by car, just off the hwy. Others are accessible by jeep trail. Stunningly beautiful and dramatic area in national forest. All very clear high mountain lakes. All have direct snow melt off filling them. Very cold! Potential viz 100ft.

Twin Lakes Res., Hourglass Res., and Comanche Res. el. 9000 - 9200 These lakes are up Poudre canyon in the Pingree Park area. Accessible by car.
Potential viz 40 feet. Unique and interesting area.

I checked out a good 30 additional lakes that didn't meet the litmus test. Now I just need a few buddies to actually dive with!
 
Excellent Dan. I'll pm you with some free days that I have and we'll see where they align.
 
I'll be diving/vacationing in FL from July 1st~23rd, but I'm game after that!

I'd start with the ones that look to have the BEST Vis. I'd LOVE to find some 50'+ vis in Colorado, but not holding my breath (cause they told me not to in dive school!:D).
 
I would love to get in on this let me know whats up ? Me and Jeff O' were trying to arrange a Carter Lake dive this week maybe one of these other lakes is a better option.

Bill
 
I think that these lakes would be better than Carter and more of an adventure.

The most likely would be the Red Feather Lakes. Lower altitude, easily accessible, and not that much of a hump to get there.
The Lakes that I named all have areas with public access. If one lake looks crowded, we could just drive over to the next. JeffO and I were thinking that "if" we could pick a weekday afternoon, we would probably be the only ones there.

The Lakes near Pingree Park are a hump to get to. I went jeeping in that area today. Its spectacular country, especially right now because everything is so green and the peaks are still white..very nice, but it would take us a couple of hours to get there. It was boiling hot down in Fort Collins and about 65 degrees up there.

The lakes near the top of Cameron Pass will be great. They are the ones I'm most excited about. Its about an hour and a half to the closest of those lakes, and a half hour more on a jeep trail to some of the more remote of those lakes. There is so much spring runoff right now that I'd bet they will be better in Aug and September. The amount of water flowing through the narrows in Poudre Canyon is impressive, actually scary.

I'm working on finding a way to get permission to dive Park Creek Res. Its by far the closest and easiest to get to...just a few miles east-northeast of Livermore. Haligan res is fairly easy to get to as well, but its going to be imposible to dive without an inflatable. The access road goes to the inlet of the lake, and there are no paths along the water's edge. I walked a ways along the shore, but realized that it would be a bear hauling tanks and gear.

So that brings us back to Red Feather Lakes. We need to get a small scouting group together as soon as we can. Matt and a new friend who lurks here named Kevin would be interested too.

Weekends or possibly a Wednesday afternoon would work for me. 12th and 13th won't...I'll be at Blue Hole.

What days work best for y'all?
 
I can go any afternoon after three, I am off tuesday and saturday this week. I know Kevin as well. I'll dive anywhere at least once I am game for Red Feather!

Kevin...... show yourself!
 
I will be doing the OWSI portion of the IDC in the end of July so I've got a few free weeks before that.

You should join me Kevin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom