EMTPDiver
Contributor
Kinda trite, but I was passing by the Eklutna Tailrace the other day, and thought it looked kinda nice. You know that spot on the Old Glenn on the way out to the Butte where the little powerplant thingy and the hatchery are? The water being pumped out of the plant looks really clear right now, and my curiosity was perked. It'll probably be worse vis than I am guessing, and the bottom is likely to be shallow and boring, and there probably won't be much in the way of life in it, and it will probably be cold as a witch's teat, but best case scenario?
It's water coming off a power plant, which has the potential for being somewhat warmer than it otherwise would be (I've dove in power-plant water before in Hawaii and it was much warmer than the already warm water around it-quite nice). It looks fairly clear from the surface, in fact perhaps clearer than Whittier on a crummy day, and much clearer than most non-glacial lakes tend to look in the summer, so who knows, it might not be so bad. It could be 10 or more feet deep since I can't see the bottom from the surface, and the banks contour rather sharply into the drink. The banks up where the water is being pumped out of the plant are strewn with large boulders, so the bottom could be rocky as opposed to muddy. And it is right next to a salmon hatchery, meaning there could be some baby salmon and their associated predators in there.
I highly doubt it, but has anyone ever taken a dip in there? I've almost always found freshwater dives up here to be a bit disappointing (except Summit Lake in Hatcher's Pass-that was cool), but I'm still curious about this place. After all, exploration, even that of the mundane, is what diving is all about, right?
It's water coming off a power plant, which has the potential for being somewhat warmer than it otherwise would be (I've dove in power-plant water before in Hawaii and it was much warmer than the already warm water around it-quite nice). It looks fairly clear from the surface, in fact perhaps clearer than Whittier on a crummy day, and much clearer than most non-glacial lakes tend to look in the summer, so who knows, it might not be so bad. It could be 10 or more feet deep since I can't see the bottom from the surface, and the banks contour rather sharply into the drink. The banks up where the water is being pumped out of the plant are strewn with large boulders, so the bottom could be rocky as opposed to muddy. And it is right next to a salmon hatchery, meaning there could be some baby salmon and their associated predators in there.
I highly doubt it, but has anyone ever taken a dip in there? I've almost always found freshwater dives up here to be a bit disappointing (except Summit Lake in Hatcher's Pass-that was cool), but I'm still curious about this place. After all, exploration, even that of the mundane, is what diving is all about, right?