Turquoise Lake one day this weekend? 9/2 or 9/3

[rugbydiver]

To the folks I've been talking with over the summer -- sorry that I've flaked on all the dates. With school prep (I'm a university professor) and uncooperative Mother Nature, it's been tough to get out.

This weekend looks bad, next Sunday is a possibility for me tho -- 17th. I live in Denver so can do the meet @ Evergreen as well.

 

[RonFrank]

Sorry for the last minute post, but here is the plan.

Meeting at the WallMart tomorrow morning at 8:00am at the ElRancho/Evergreen exit off of I70.

See you there Frank, wife, and Dan?

 

[RonFrank]

Five of us left Evergreen at 8:30am headed toward Turquoise lake. The drive is nice, especially from the turnoff from I70 to Leadville. The leaves are turning.. so if you live in the Denver area, you have a week, maybe two tops, and they will be mostly gone!

We arrived and setup at the Abe Lee Fishing area. The air temp was in the 50's. The lake is at 10,000ft (I've read anything from 10,500, to 10,000, so we will go with 10,000ft), I forgot the GPS to be sure.

We setup the tarp, the 10x10' canopy, and dragged a magnanimous amount of STUFF out of the back of the truck!

We were all dving dry, with the exception of Frank's son, whom was diving a NeoDrySuit that Frank felt the need to revive after a dozen years of use by carefully sealing the seams. Unfortunately it was anything but DRY! :11doh:

Retire that suit Frank, I heard you mumbling something about AquaSeal! Give the poor thing the proper burial it deserves!

We did two dives, each 30minutes. We stayed somewhat shallow as vis was impacted by the sun, or lack there of on a day where it was mostly cloudy with patches of sun. Max Depth was 27 feet, water temps were 55F to that depth. Vis ranged, but I'd say at times up to 20 feet, and generally 15 feet. For CO this was as good as I've seen. On a sunny day, it would have been even better.

We saw all the usual things, IOW's basically nothing other than the bottom! :mooner: Frank says he saw a Lake Trout, but we are thinking that is Urban Legand, or maybe a manifestation resulting from eating a bit of old turnip or something! The fisherman nearby also did not seem to be seeing any fish as I observed much fishing, and no *catching*. :lol:

It would be interesting to know how deep this lake is. We were likely never farther than 40 feet from shore with a depth of around 30feet at that point, but it was dropping off FAST. I'd say about a 45degree slope at that point.

I always wonder why I dive these conditions. I don't mind the Drysuit, but gearing up with 5mm gloves, and a drysuit hood is just no fun! But as usual, I enjoyed the diving, and we all had a fun day.

 

[Daxter]

Good to hear you guys had a good time. When we were there last weekend my wife said she saw a lake trout and the next day my brother said he saw one also, but I am with you I think they ate something bad. Although my Turquoise takle box does grow by leaps and bound with every trip up there. Nice report.

 

[ddavies]

Your not going to believe this. At 3 minutes 15 seconds into our first dive my dive computer shows me at a depth of 271 ft. At 3 minutes I was at 11ft. at 3 minutes 30 seconds I was at 17ft. and at 3 minutes 45 seconds I was at 18ft. That 271ft. reading does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I spotted this because the dive showed up as a deco dive. I could not imagine why that dive would show deco. That was when I looked at the readings.

 

[ddavies]

Well I feel better now. I deleted the dive and then uploaded it again. This time 3 minutes 15 seconds shows 15 feet, which makes sense. That tells me that it was a communications error and that the communications protocol is not doing simple error checking.