Lake Powell Open Water Swimming

We are back from a week on the ultimate open-water long course – Lake Powell. What an outstanding week!  I swam pretty much every day but my longest swim was 1.25 miles around a kidney shaped course with no walls or contact with anything other than the back of the boat and water!

Lake Powell backs up behind the Glen Canyon dam and is supplied by the Colorado and San Juan Rivers.  The main channel is marked by floating buoys.  Each buoy has the number of miles to the dam painted on it.  We parked the Royal Flush, our 70’ houseboat, around buoy 110. 

Surface water temperature in the lake is complicated but varied between 78 and 85 degrees.  After a couple of windless days the surface temp will reach 85 in places.  The water below the surface is much cooler and when the wind blows and churns the water the very top dropped to near 80.  The water at your fingertips while swimming might be about 78.  When the wind hasn’t blown for a day the water will warm up to 82 and in the small side canyons where the wind doesn’t reach and the heat reflects off the nearby canyon walls the water can warm up to a blistering 85 in places.  If the sun is up the air is hot at Lake Powell.  I was a little worried about overheating when then water temps crept up but the wind is a regular event there so the worry was short lived.

A view across the lake at sunrise on a still morning.  The other side is probably a mile away and the cliff is hundreds of feet tall.

 

We parked the Royal Flush in a small bay off the main channel.   There were additional small bays on either side of our bay.  My long swim started in our bay, over to and around the bay to our north back across the mouth or our bay, over to and around the bay to our south and back to our bay. The main channel could get busy with boat traffic and waves they generated but our group of bays were small and saw no traffic other than our boats and the neighbor’s boat and paddle board. 

The water is deep at Lake Powell and gradual beaches are scarce.  It is not a place to learn to swim.  The depth off the back of our boat was 40’.  The depth of the main channel was beyond our fish finders’ range of 450’.  In most places the bank is a steep cliff or difficult-to-climb rocks so it can be hard to find a resting spot.

The walls of Lake Powell are magnificent.  I think the coolest part of swimming in Lake Powell are the views.  Imagine sight swimming on a 400’ cliff or swimming under an overhanging ledge with water dripping out of the overhang.  Or swimming by cliffs some of the rest of your group is cliff diving from.

This is part of our cove.  The boat is docked to the right just out of view.

 

One day I swam intervals.   1/10 mile easy swim to a rock on the other side of the bay and then a hard swim back.  The swims back were extra hard because it was into a strong wind.  It was kind of fun to body surf through the waves.  It was surprisingly easy to come up for air but I did have a few misses.

This was the course for my interval swim. At the bottom of the frame is the railing on the top deck of the boat.  The "small" rock at the water line was the other end of my course.  The rock is 1/10 of a mile away from the boat.

 

I swam with one of the Club’s open water floaters.  It was pretty handy and gave my wife peace of mind.  It is bright orange and easier for a boat to spot than a plain swimmer.  It is half dry bag and half buoy. It has a strap you fasten around your waist and a short lead from the waist strap to the floater. I put my GPS, shirt, hat, shoes, camera, and/or water bottle in the dry bag side, inflated the other side and strapped it around my waist.  It was a very light drag when swimming into the wind.  When the rest of the group boated over for cliff diving I put shoes, shirt, and camera in the bag and swam over.   On a long swim or interval swim I would take water and the GPS.  It can also be used as a floater if you need a rest and there is no purchase on the side of the lake.

On a swim with the open water floater

 

I tried my GPS, a Garmin Forerunner 310XT, on my wrist at East Park pool before the trip and was disappointed with the results.  Apparently you need the next model to accurately track swimming from your wrist.  It worked perfectly in the dry bag although the time is a little bit off because you have to start it, and then seal it up and vice versa at the end of the swim.

Fish, weeds and other beings of the wild water were not an issue.  The fish don’t like all the noise a swimmer makes.  One of our group was hanging out on a floater had a fish bite her hard enough to leave a bruise.  Weeds are not an issue either.  Most of the banks are too steep for vegetation, there is very little dirt, and the water level drops as much as 4” per day after the runoff.

I hope you all get a chance to visit and swim in Lake Powell. It is an awesome swimming pool (and a good fishing hole as well).

A crack in the wall we explored

Inside the crack