Diving Chatfield Reservoir

[RMAdventure]

I've been looking at a map of Chatfield and it got me to thinking. Most of the diving that I have read about at Chatfield seems to be at Kingfisher. I e-mailed the park about diving elsewhere and it appears that it is allowed, as long as you use the proper markings for the divers/boat.

Having said all of that, does anybody have any experience diving elsewhere in the lake? The deepest part of the lake I found on the map is about 70' and there are numerous old quarries in the 30'-50' range. There is also an old bridge in the 20' range, I would imagine there is a lot of old fishing gear on it. Here is the approximate location of the bridge:


It might be tricky to anchor and dive during the weekend when there is a lot of ski/jet ski traffic, but a weekday dive might give someone a chance to anchor over the bridge or some of the quarries and explore them.

 

[RMAdventure]

Anyone?

 

[g2]

I've only done Kingfisher, but I would be willing to have a go at the main part of Chatfield... so long as it's away from the jet-skis.

Do you have a boat?

 

[RMAdventure]

There is a no wake zone in each of the "arms" of the lake. Those areas would most likely be safe, even during the weekend. The main part of the lake is where the jet skis and skiing is allowed. So we probably wouldn't want to be out there during the weekend. I would imagine early morning on a weekday there wouldn't be many people out there.

I have an 18' pontoon boat. With gear it would probably only hold 4, maybe five divers with gear. I would need to get an alpha flag and I would have to have someone to stay with the boat. But it would definitely open up some areas on Chatfield, as well as probably Carter and Horsetooth.

 

[boulderjohn]

I dived the main Chatfield Reservoir a couple of years ago for the purpose of looking for something that fell off a sailboat that capsized. You can only do it on a weekday (no weekends), and you must have a dive flag. My buddies and I were pretty close to shore on our search, and we had a couple of dive flags to mark our area. Motor boats still passed very close The area where we dived was very shallow, and the visibility was horrible--inches at the bottom.

 

[g2]

Yeah, the shallow areas get churned-up by boat wakes. We saw that at Carter Lake, even in an area where the boats weren't allowed. The deeper areas may be better.

RMAdventure, I'm game. Weekdays would be fine, with a few days notice.

 

[RMAdventure]

I haven't done any dives since my OW weekend, so I definitely need to get some practice dives in local water done first. I'm hoping in June I'll start seeing groups going to Aurora or Carter. I also just ordered a dry suit off of ebay. Hopefully it is in as good of shape as they claimed and it looked in the pictures. Then I'll just need to take a class and I'll be ready to dive in it!

 

[xric]

I haven't done any dives since my OW weekend, so I definitely need to get some practice dives in local water done first. I'm hoping in June I'll start seeing groups going to Aurora or Carter. I also just ordered a dry suit off of ebay. Hopefully it is in as good of shape as they claimed and it looked in the pictures. Then I'll just need to take a class and I'll be ready to dive in it!

Curious to learn if anyone ever met up to do these dive explorations? I am about 25 minutes away from Chatfield and would like to try it as well. I have not done any "local" diving since moving here, though I do keep my gills wet.

X

 

[RMAdventure]

We did several weekends after those posts. Usually if you are interested in going a specific weekend you can start a new thread with the dates and find someone to join you.

 

[xric]

Any update on the site(s)? Worth your time/effort? Thanks.