Where do you dive?

[zamburinha]

Hi! I will be moving to Boulder within a month and was wondering where do you guys go to dive. I heard of the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa ... but what other places are around? How far are they from Boulder?

Also, do you dive year round? I will be arriving there is December with a brand new dry suit that I can't wait to try. Anybody willing to dive with a very inexperienced dry suit diver in the middle of winter?

 

[georoc01]

Denver Aquarium is a nice dive year round.

Homestead Crater in Utah isn't a bad dive either. Its a hot spring.

There's also Ice diving if you are interested in the winter. I believe most of the reservoirs do have limits on diving that close between October and April.

Fortunately Frontier Airlines has direct flights to Cozumel!!!

 

[_Blue]

Around Denver I usually dive Chatfield State Park which has a small scuba area in a pond adjacent to the main reservoir (fairly shallow [around 30'] with frequently poor viz) or Aurora reservoir which has a dedicated scuba area with a sunken plane to check out (again, around 30' depth with viz frequently around 3-8'). I'm not positive, but I think they both close seasonally. I've just started attending some of the local dive clubs and meeting "future buddies" with the hope of expanding my list of local dive sites (personally, I don't want to drive more than a couple hours to dive). There's a lot of fine sediment that can get stirred up and blow out viz, so my take on local conditions is that they're PERFECT for training. Navigation, buoyancy, and anti-silting techniques can be practiced on every dive. My current project is recording headings to/from objects and running navigation circuits around the areas. I have to smile when I'm on vacation and after sharing where I'm from, hearing someone say "well, at least we won't get lost".

Additionally, you could check out the Colorado Scuba Group on meetup.com. I dove with a few of those fine folks in September and had a great time! As I remember it, several people were from the Boulder area and I think they were the same folks who were diving dry that day.

 

[g2]

Hi zamburinha!

Welcome to Colorado+Boulder. I was one of the drysuit divers with Blue at Aurora Res in September.

I live in Boulder and I'm always happy to go diving, schedule permitting. We can talk nerdy physics, dive physics and the other kind! (Half the readers here are thinking, "There's something other than dive physics?")

Aurora Reservoir closed October 31st, so that's out until the city recreational office comes to their senses next spring.

There's some other diving around but you have to be creative. I have a 4x4 and the stupid-happy foolishness to go diving in mountain lakes during the winter, just give me a shout.

glenn

 

[zamburinha]

Thanks for the info! I see that there is not much "easy" diving there in the winter. Not completely surprising ... but I had to ask

@ glenn: will definitively give you a shout once I am there and have my equipment. Mountain lakes in winter sounds like an interesting concept, at least in theory ... given that I am an experimental physicist, I only trust theory so much, so I would need to try

 

[boulderjohn]

Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier. As you might guess, I live in Boulder, as well.

My next "local" diving will be in Santa Rosa, NM, in the third weekend in December. We will leave Thursday afternoon and arrive Thursday evening. We will dive Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but not at the Blue Hole. We dive in nearby Rock Lake, which is roughly 8 times farther across than the Blue Hole and about 3-4 times deeper, depending upon where you are in it. The problem with it is that it is on private property, and only a handful of people are allowed in. These people are all instructors, and they are themselves allowed to choose who they will allow to join them.

It is advanced diving, and the owner only allows AOW or above in the lake. In practice, it is primarily for technical instruction or fun diving for those with the appropriate training. The environment is much more primitive, natural, and fragile than the Blue Hole, and the instructors who are allowed there will generally be picky about who can join them.

According to your profile, you are a GUE Level 1 diver. You will fit right in with us and will certainly be welcome without any further questions. We are a UTD group, so our training will be very similar.

Our next planned dive after that is the Oriskany in January. Some of us will be driving down and others will be flying.

If you are interested, let me know. I can get you hooked up with helium and everything else you might want.

 

[zamburinha]

Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier. As you might guess, I live in Boulder, as well.

My next "local" diving will be in Santa Rosa, NM, in the third weekend in December. We will leave Thursday afternoon and arrive Thursday evening. We will dive Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but not at the Blue Hole. We dive in nearby Rock Lake, which is roughly 8 times farther across than the Blue Hole and about 3-4 times deeper, depending upon where you are in it. The problem with it is that it is on private property, and only a handful of people are allowed in. These people are all instructors, and they are themselves allowed to choose who they will allow to join them.

It is advanced diving, and the owner only allows AOW or above in the lake. In practice, it is primarily for technical instruction or fun diving for those with the appropriate training. The environment is much more primitive, natural, and fragile than the Blue Hole, and the instructors who are allowed there will generally be picky about who can join them.

According to your profile, you are a GUE Level 1 diver. You will fit right in with us and will certainly be welcome without any further questions. We are a UTD group, so our training will be very similar.

Our next planned dive after that is the Oriskany in January. Some of us will be driving down and others will be flying.

If you are interested, let me know. I can get you hooked up with helium and everything else you might want.

Boulderjohn, your timing is perfect! I am moving to Boulder next week. I will give you a shout about that NM dive when I am there with all my gear, would love to join you for that

 

[shoredivr]

There's some other diving around but you have to be creative. I have a 4x4 and the stupid-happy foolishness to go diving in mountain lakes during the winter, just give me a shout.

glenn

I"m just in town (Boulder) for one day more, and stopped in to a local shop to ask about local altitude diving when I'm back in the spring. The shop mentioned a lake at 11,000 ft south of the I70, now I can't remember the name. Any ideas? I dive cold water a lot (live in the Great Lakes) and would love to dive a mountain lake when I'm back...

 

[Waterskier1]

I"m just in town (Boulder) for one day more, and stopped in to a local shop to ask about local altitude diving when I'm back in the spring. The shop mentioned a lake at 11,000 ft south of the I70, now I can't remember the name. Any ideas? I dive cold water a lot (live in the Great Lakes) and would love to dive a mountain lake when I'm back...

I don't know of any lakes at 11,000 ft just south of I-70. The only lake I can think of that is close to 11,000-ft is Jefferson Lake. It is the lake that comes to mind when discussing high altitude lakes near Denver. I guess you could get there from I-70, then HWY-9 to US 285 and backtrack east, but I would go that way! I'd just take US 285 out of Denver to the small town of Jefferson (which is just east of Fairplay), then turn north on Co-37 and follow it all the way to the lake. The last time I dove it, it was very cold, about 38-F I think. It is about 10,700-ft, give or take; pretty close to 11,000-ft.

Dillon Res is just south of I-70 just west of the tunnel, but there is no body-contact (i.e. swimming, water skiing, diving, etc.) allowed there - it's Denver's water supply. It is at around 9,000-ft also. If you could provide more details about where on I-70 this lake is, we might be able to help. Of course, there are tons of small, even unnamed lakes all around too.

 

[boulderjohn]

My guess is that Jefferson Lake is indeed the lake in question, but I don't think you will have an easy time diving it. The access road to is not maintained in the winter, and I will bet that the only way you are going to get there now is by snowmobile. If you decided to go, bring your chainsaw and ice diving equipment.