Mouths Closed, Beaks Open at Munn Lake

Last week I set a goal of not screaming or singing off-key as I entered the chilly waters of my local lake. To add some pressure to meet this goal, I set up my camera so it would record any vocalizations. There might be a wee bit of audible whimpering, but nothing to match the geese and ducks. Enjoy this 3 minute video!

Stages of a Winter Wild Swim

My friend and I had planned a swim on Saturday but it took until Tuesday to finally get in the water. The air was 42 degrees F, the water 46. This does not add up to 100, which is the number someone recommended as a guide to “swimmable” water in “tolerable” air, but we had done 88 before and so proceeded. Someone asked me recently why I swim in really cold water. I will try to explain. 

There are three parts to the swim: the before, the during, and the after. 

The “before” includes picking a day and time with my friend; dreading the swim (four days’ worth for this particular swim); getting into my bathing suit, fleece, wool socks, wool hat, and dry robe; dreading the swim some more; making hot tea; driving to the lake; standing at the edge of the lake waiting for my brain and body to get in sync and to decide that at this moment right now…now…now (oh, one more photo)…that at this moment now the “before” stage is over. 

Self portrait of author while author’s hippie-hatted brain struggles to convince author to stay out of the 46-degree water. Shortly after photo was taken, author told brain to “get over it.” (Photo by M.M. Ruth)

Then the “during” begins with accompanying my bathing suit and wool hat into the water, slowly, up to my waist. My friend is similarly clad and nearby, but she moves more peacefully and steadily. We dip our hands in, splash water on our arms, rub our cold wet hands on our faces, look at the lake and clouds and trees. We talk to ourselves and to each other. We say things like, “Okaaaay!” “Here we go!” “We can do this!” And we do. We just drop so that the water rushes over our shoulders. I flip onto my back and kick and paddle my hands like egg-beaters and try to not scream and sing an operatic off-key note but usually fail. That I am in this very cold lake is bizarre. That I am not crying or weeping or miserable is astonishing. That I am smiling and laughing with my friend is a wild and wonderful gift.

Yes, I am very cold. 

Despite my constant thrashing, my hands tingle to the point of discomfort. Is this pain? I am not sure. It’s a feeling. But it’s a sign that if I get out much further in the lake or stay in much longer, my hands—and then arms and legs—will not work well enough to get me back to shore. Keep in mind we are about 30 feet from shore but in water over our heads. We stay in maybe ten minutes then breast stroke toward shore. My friend hands me her wool hat, she dives underwater, and emerges with an even bigger smile. I am not there yet, but soon. I am still seeking and hoping to destroy my idiopathic resistance to putting my head under water.

The “after” of the swim begins when our feet touch the bottom of the lake—about ten feet from the shore—and we lunge for our dry robes, exchange wet suit for dry fleece pants and sweater, and then wrap our hands around a cup of hot tea.  We talk. We warm up. We admire the colors and textures of the water, the reflections of the clouds, the harmony of water and sky and trees. 

As we begin to feel a bit of post-swim euphoria (endorphins? relief? gratitude?), we slowly head to our cars where one of us will undoubtedly say, “That was perfect. We should swim again soon.” We are vague about when. Here in the “after,” I am not quite ready to start another “before”. I think of a stanza in Wallace Steven’s poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird:

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

At the lake, we do not have to choose. We enjoy both the inflection and innuendo, the whistling and the silence, the water and the air, the during and the after. 

The “after” is a really wonderful time and is in no way sponsored by dryrobe, though they do make the before and after quite pleasant, even toasty. (Photo by M.M. Ruth)

Lake Chelan Wild Swim

At its south end, Lake Chelan doesn’t say “wild swim” the way other lakes do. At Don Morse Lakeshore Park, it says “recreational lake for summer tourists, locals, and Coppertone.” Which was fine. I’m all for people getting outside enjoying and recreating in nature. This was my first trip to Lake Chelan (pronounced by most as Shuh-lan) and I wanted to experience both this popular municipal beach near the (over)-developed south end of the lake and the remote shores of the north end 55 miles away near the remote village of Stehekin.

While a swim from the municipal beach was easy (almost a drive-up swim), getting to the remote north of the lake required more planning. Stehekin, like every place along the north half of the lake is accessible only by boat, floatplane, horseback, or by hiking trail.

In the wake of the Pleistocene…a ice-gouged valley and a 1,485-foot-deep lake. (Photo by M. M. Ruth of map on display aboard the Lady of the Lake passenger ferry.

Lake Chelan is 55 miles long, between 1 and 2 miles wide (except at the narrows where it’s just 1/3 mile wide), and snakes its way across three separate Green Trails topographic map sheets (Nos. 82, 11, and 114). This lake is an unfathomable 1,485 feet deep at its deepest . It is the largest naturally-formed lake in Washington, though it cannot be called a natural lake due to the small dam built in 1928 at the south end. Lake Chelan developed in a broad glacial valley during the Pleistocene, about 2.5 million years ago. Everything north of the town of Chelan was buried under the Okanagan lobe of the ice sheet that covered the northern third of Washington. Lake Chelan is steep sided and surrounded by rugged wilderness areas, national forests, national recreation areas, and North Cascades National Park.

Most tourists do not come to Lake Chelan to swim, though there is a “family fun” open-water 1.5-mile Lake Chelan Swim event every Saturday after Labor Day from Manson Bay, eight miles north of the town of Chelan. They come to recreate around Chelan and to take the Lady of the Lake passenger ferry up the lake. Some passengers are bound for Holden Village, a former gold- and copper-mining town and now religious retreat operated by the Lutheran Church. Others deboard at “flag stops” (i.e. flag the captain and he’ll stop/crash the boat along the shore, extend the ramp/gang plank, and send you and your backpack on your merry way into the wilderness).

The Lady of the Lake passenger ferry runs daily trips from Chelan to Stehekin. It’s a grand way to enjoy the scenery, mingle with fellow travelers and residents, and enjoy the ferry captains’ informative narrative. Plan on making unscheduled stops for interesting sights and to drop off and pick up passengers hiking and camping in the wilderness areas surrounding the lake.

The majority of passengers are headed to Stehekin to spend just a few hours exploring the town, the valley, and famous Stehekin Bakery by shuttle bus. Others set off from Stehekin to hike the trails (including the Pacific Crest Trail) in the surrounding wilderness. Overnighters can camp along the lake or stay at the lovely historic North Cascades Lodge. Some will rent kayaks or canoes to explore the lake.

Kayaks rented from the North Cascades Lodge in Stehekin make a great way to explore Lake Chelan but be aware of shifting winds that can make paddling northward a slog. Photo by M.M. Ruth

Stand-Up Paddle Canoeing isn’t the rage yet on Lake Chelan but I recommend it for a pleasant change in perpective of the water and the clouds floating in it. Plus it gives the stearnsman a ridiculous photo op. (Photo by M.D. Ruth)

During the two days I stayed at the lodge, I did see two other swimmers (“bathers” might be a better term) but I think I was the only person who swam for pleasure.

“Pleasure” might be a bit of an overstatement. The water at the north end of Lake Chelan at Stehekin was much colder than at the south end. A short hike south on the Lakeshore Trail lead us to Flick Creek campground and a decent-enough access point. And by “us” I mean me. My three companions were not interested in sharing my obsession with wild swimming on this day.

This was one of the briskest swims I took all summer. I’d say it was below 60 degrees—but the clouds and the wind made it seem colder. I guess if meteorologists can talk about “wind-chill factor,” I can talk about “cloud-chop” factor. I swam in 52-degree water in March, but the water was calm and the day was an unseasonably warm and sunny 80 degrees. There is some interesting research on our perception of “cold” water. The air temperature, wind, cloud cover, our mood, our caffeine level, our previous night’s alcohol consumption, and other factors influence not only our perception of the water temperature but also our ability to tolerate it.

Advice: If you are a) solo swimming in a 1,486-foot-deep lake and are b) not wearing a wet suit and c) not accompanied by anyone interested in or willing to get in the water and d) the water is really really cold and choppy and e) it is cloudy and cool…do not stay in long or go far from shore. This swim in Lake Chelan qualified for a-e and so was under ten minutes. (Photo by M.D. Ruth)

And shortly before getting on the ferry to return home, I took a swim near the boat docks in front of the North Cascades Lodge. A very easy access point and I had enough time to swim to this mooring log and back. I’m so glad I did so I can keep living up to my motto: Never give up an opportunity for a wild swim.

Yeehaw!

Next Up: Wild Swims on the East Coast, including Thoreau’s Walden Pond (which is a lake).

“I Need to Show You This Lake...

…only I can’t tell you where it is and you can’t tell anyone once we show it to you.”

Over the summer a few of my fellow lake-swimming enthusiasts have been kind enough to take me to their secret lakes as long as I promised not to provide the name or directions to others. I’ve found these secrets easy to keep because Washington state boasts thousands of swimming lakes. I feel lucky to live in a landscape so pervious, pock marked, glacier scoured, and potholed that the secret holders are not depriving anyone of the experience of lake swimming.

Most of our swimmable lakes are accessible by public boat ramp, dock, beach, or trail. The secret lakes require way-finding skill and sometimes a bit of bushwhacking. Trail markers and cairns are entirely absent.

None of the secret lakes I’ve been to have official names and don’t always appear on maps. They become known because someone discovers them and then they tell a friend who tells two friends and so on. And, while I might tell you about these lakes, I cannot for the life of me retrace my steps to return to them or describe the roads and routes and landmarks that would get you anywhere but lost.

Photo by M.M. Ruth

So it was this past when when two friends guided me on a hike-scramble to this beauty. It was the clearest water I have ever swum in—so clear that it is easy to forget it is water. So clear that, as one friend said, “it’s hard to remember not to breathe it.”

It was what I might once have called “freezing” but now, after months of lake swimming, I’ll call it perfectly delightful cold. We swam, floated and swam some more. When the clouds parted and the sun shone down on the lake, we warmed up on the rocks on the far shore. The lake was silent save for the occasional squeak of a pika and the clattering wings of the grasshoppers echoing against the rocks and cliff. There was no human presence at all—just wilderness all around.

While the sun warmed our skin it also warmed the thin skin of the lake. When we slipped back into the water, the top few inches of the lake had noticeably warmed. To preserve that layer of warm water, we swam slowly without kicking and churning up the cold water beneath. I stretched out on my back and floated, spinning slowly around to memorize the contours of the shore, hill, and peaks and to take in the last bit of summer’s warmth.

I left the water and walked down the sandy shoreline toward my towel, lunch, and thermos of hot tea. I walked slowly, scanning the edge of water for newts. Something caught my eye. There on the beach, scrawled in the sand in all capital letters:

ONLY

WITH

SOUL