Ice Diving, February 27th, 2010

Posted on 27. Feb, 2010 by Greg Mossfeldt in Ice Diving

It was good to have John Weisbrich diving with us as he has been on a sabatical in Thailand. John got off the airplane a short time ago from a month of fun in the sun and was game to join us for some balmy ice diving here at Minnewanka. It was good to see John's skills were not lacking as his buoyancy and trim were top notch. John's line skills he learned while cave diving with Jill Heinerth in Florida were right up as well.

I corresponded with Terry Forsyth on arrival time at the lake which was 07:45 this morning but last minute gear changes with my camera took us well beyond this rendezvous. Terry was about to vacate the rocky shore of the causeway but spotted Dave Elia driving up so turned back around to join the tardy team much to our pleasure.

John Weisbrich and I arrived on the scene with our Tim Horton's coffee to high five both Dave and Terry then start in on setting up our gear pronto.

Dave Elia brought his pal along and they took turns taking chain saw gear down to our ice hole at the bottom of the rocks. Setting our ice hole up at the bottom of the rocks has worked very well as it saves us a lot of heavy lifting and traveling time walking the gear on the surface out to the 1912 Dam. We have been running a cave line from our entrance point, under the ice to the 1912 Dam. We also mark the line with light strobes to aid in our navigation.

We our cutting up our hole in a different manner as per usual and it takes a lot of chiseling making the indentations at the various points. I know myself just cutting the normal triangle is very fast and efficient but the visual effect does become mundane. The indentations we add, also allow the diver to push themselves up at the end of the dive and get out of the water with ease.

Dave Elia has been coming out with us the last few times and has began to make sense of the systems our team utilizes. Dave is a keen learner and it is good to share in the camaraderie with him. Dave's skill level is improving immensely as he progresses in this team environment.

Terry Forsyth had his camera on this dive so he and I both took pics of the adventures under the ice.

It is warming up now so the ice diving is going to be very popular from now until the ice begins to thaw.

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