Lake Pleasant Conditions II

[AzAtty]

yep... my favorite part was watching my compass spin in circles the whole "dive"... not sure if it does that at Saguaro too, but it's quite amusing to see

You're kidding, right? Ron and I experienced that at Saguaro, but we figured that we had our compasses too close together while crawling through the muck. We ended up calling the dive because his compass told him one thing, and mine told me another. Since I only had that problem at Butcher Jones, I figured it was operator error.

 

[AzAtty]

There was a day when Canyon actually had better conditions than Saguaro...

That was the day before SRP let water flow into Saguaro, right?

 

[ScubaSteve2000]

I went by Canyon in early December. Good for wading but I'm not certain there was enough water to swim in.

 

[booth22]

You're kidding, right? Ron and I experienced that at Saguaro, but we figured that we had our compasses too close together while crawling through the muck. We ended up calling the dive because his compass told him one thing, and mine told me another. Since I only had that problem at Butcher Jones, I figured it was operator error.

Nope, it happened at Canyon too... I've heard it's due to the mineral content in the rock- it spooked my wife pretty good too, she wasn't having fun in the pea soup vis and the crazy compass didn't help. That was the worst vis we've ever seen by far- it'll be a loooong time before I try the east side lakes again. (which stinks since they're much closer for us )

 

[Dive-aholic]

I went by Canyon in early December. Good for wading but I'm not certain there was enough water to swim in.

Holy crap!!! I just checked the lake level page on AZ G&F and I can't believe Canyon is 55' below full!!! That lake is only about 100' deep at the river bed!! No wonder the visibility sucks!

Blake, I haven't been to Saguaro in a few years. With Canyon being as low as it is, they must be letting water flow through there.

As for the compass stuff, there's a high lead content in the ground/bottom in that area of AZ. We had the same thing happen to us at Canyon a few years ago when we first dove it. We were swimming in circles following our compasses until we figured out we were seeing really similar bottom features. We were able to figure out the arrows weren't really pointing north. We never spent enough time in Saguaro to know it happened there, too. I guess once we found Pleasant, we just never looked back.

Maybe someone should tell the Chinese about that area.....

 

[fkostyun]

One thing I heard from the forest service last month about canyon is that they are lowering the lake level to do work on some area (which makes sense)

I am hoping to start heading out to pleasant again next month (and hopefully have some better vis)

 

[broncobowsher]

SRP: Canyon Lake drawdown

I can't find the details right now but I believe that Sagauro lake is due next year.

 

[booth22]

Went to Pleasant today- temps around 53, vis around 4 ft. On the bright side, it rained on us.

 

[superchoriflai]

Pleasant was about 52 on the surface today and around 45 at 50'. Vis was 5' - 10' depending on depth. On the whole it wasn't bad just a bit chilly at depth. Once my face numbed up I was good to go.

 

[booth22]

Same report I was about to add, though I didn't dare hit the 45 degrees, I stopped around 40 feet. We were at Vista Point and the vis was around 5' give or take, not a bad day to hit the lake all in all.