The End of Rock Lake????

[scubadada]

@WarrenZ

Posted by @boulderjohn in Thinking of getting pickier on conditions

I am all too aware of that these days.

I live most of the year in Colorado, and the only place we can do this kind of diving is in a large, 280 foot deep sinkhole on private property in New Mexico, a 6+ hour drive from my home. There is no infrastructure for tech diving nearby--no trimix to be had, and the only nitrox is hours away in Albuquerque. The market for tech diving in the area is very small, so there aren't many such divers or students. Consequently, an instructor/shop who pours in the resources needed to establish a real tech program is probably making a financial mistake. This creates a chicken-egg situation--you don't have tech resources because you don't have the divers to make it pay off, and you don't have the divers to make it pay off because you don't have tech resources.

So this year I said the Hell with it all. In my old age I was going to make this work, even if it would be a money-losing proposition designed to do little more than give me people with whom I could dive. I bought a powerful booster so I could make trimix fills on location. I bought a portable filter so I could hook it up to a local compressor and get hyper pure air. I bought a large van to carry everything. By the end of the year, things were going great. I made the trips with the van filled with equipment, including 4 300-cubic foot bottles of helium and 2 bottles of oxygen. I had students meeting me from all over the place, including south Texas. I would never break even on my purchases, but I could do the dives I wanted.

Then I scheduled the December trip with the property owner, and she informed me that to meet some financial obligations, she would be selling the lake to the nearby Fish and Game department, which already uses the water for a trout hatchery. They would absolutely not allow any diving on the site. That would be the end of everything. There is no other real technical diving site that I know of in the Rocky Mountain region. We discussed our options, and the nearest one was 10+ hours away from my home. I began to make plans to sell that equipment for anything I could get for it, and I figured I would stop instructing altogether.

Yesterday I got the good news--she had made different arrangements, and the lake will still be available to us, at least for now. If, on the other hand, she decides to sell again, it will be all over.

 

[boulderjohn]

Thanks for posting that.

Yes, there has been a reprieve. I am told there will be changes in entry procedures (which has to be good--I can't figure out a way to make them worse), and the daily fee will be higher, but we will still be able to dive there, at least for now.

So once I get back to Colorado this spring, we will be able to go back to Rock Lake, and those of you who are interested in tech diving there should feel free to contact me about it.

 

[WarrenZ]

@WarrenZ

Posted by @boulderjohn in Thinking of getting pickier on conditions

I am all too aware of that these days.

I live most of the year in Colorado, and the only place we can do this kind of diving is in a large, 280 foot deep sinkhole on private property in New Mexico, a 6+ hour drive from my home. There is no infrastructure for tech diving nearby--no trimix to be had, and the only nitrox is hours away in Albuquerque. The market for tech diving in the area is very small, so there aren't many such divers or students. Consequently, an instructor/shop who pours in the resources needed to establish a real tech program is probably making a financial mistake. This creates a chicken-egg situation--you don't have tech resources because you don't have the divers to make it pay off, and you don't have the divers to make it pay off because you don't have tech resources.

So this year I said the Hell with it all. In my old age I was going to make this work, even if it would be a money-losing proposition designed to do little more than give me people with whom I could dive. I bought a powerful booster so I could make trimix fills on location. I bought a portable filter so I could hook it up to a local compressor and get hyper pure air. I bought a large van to carry everything. By the end of the year, things were going great. I made the trips with the van filled with equipment, including 4 300-cubic foot bottles of helium and 2 bottles of oxygen. I had students meeting me from all over the place, including south Texas. I would never break even on my purchases, but I could do the dives I wanted.

Then I scheduled the December trip with the property owner, and she informed me that to meet some financial obligations, she would be selling the lake to the nearby Fish and Game department, which already uses the water for a trout hatchery. They would absolutely not allow any diving on the site. That would be the end of everything. There is no other real technical diving site that I know of in the Rocky Mountain region. We discussed our options, and the nearest one was 10+ hours away from my home. I began to make plans to sell that equipment for anything I could get for it, and I figured I would stop instructing altogether.

Yesterday I got the good news--she had made different arrangements, and the lake will still be available to us, at least for now. If, on the other hand, she decides to sell again, it will be all over.

I found that after I asked the question thanks @scubadada and thanks for the update @boulderjohn

 

[nite-rox]

.