"Ya' know, I've only ever swam in the river one time my whole life."
"Yea?"
Our former neighbor, Bob, breaking a bit from his foundation landscape weeding chores, seeing us servicing a few river boats in the back yard, walks over and leans against the nearest fence post. This a few years back. At the time he's well into his eighties in age. He's since passed along...
"Yea. That was durin' World War II at the time. "Chisel' [an old pal of his], a few other buddies, and me were down at Flat Rock. I was only around ten years old and had never been in the river. Those guys convinced me to swim with 'em over to the old stone pier. We swam out and were sitting on top of the pier. We're within an hour out, and all of a sudden the fire and air raid sirens started going off in town. Then cars start blowing their horns. Police, fire and ambulance vehicles are circling the city streets, sirens blaring. Church bells were resounding.... It was big news that the U.S. had just days before dropped atomic bombs on Japan. No one even knew what an atomic bomb was. Top secret until then. As far as we knew one bomb could blow up the whole world. We're stuck out alone on the pier expecting to any second get blasted to kingdom come by who knows what. A short time later we found out that Japan had just surrendered to the U.S. It was all celebration."
Google mapping with annotation identifying
Flat Rock and Pier... and, 'Fabians Swim'
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So what is (or was) Fabian's Swim as mapped?...
Not your modern day "polar plunge". No briefly dipping toes in the frigid shoreline then quickly turning tail to girly-run squealing back onto the beach. Back in the day there was a guy in town who carried out an annual New Year's Day SWIM. Not for attention or publicity. Not a sideshow (although it usually attracted spectators). A personal endeavor. This guy was the real deal. Dave Fabian. Always on New Year's Day. There was no cancellation or postponement for better weather or conditions. We personally witnessed his swim only once. Late 1960's. Temperature 22ºF. He plunged in off of Flat Rock. Catching the down flow current, he swam swift and effortless diagonally cross-river to exit an old river access path low end of what is now Yough River Park. Go with the flow. Let the current do the work. Maybe a minute total time. Two minutes at best. He exited the water, walked up the path, got in his car and left. Mapped distance we scaled at around 580 feet. Let's say 600 feet considering drift.
Sadly, he drowned a year or two later repeating his annual swim. The circumstance was always vague. One conjecture was that he was repeatedly pelted with snowballs from a group of shoreline miscreants which led to his "accident".
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"Paddlin' Rob" checkin' out the thickness of
the ice pack after a late winter surge
(Note the ice encrusted large drift wood)
A few years back we were doin' quite a bit of local creek paddling with our buddy, paddlin' Rob (as opposed to our other buddy, climbin' Rob). Usually always during late fall/winter/early spring when the creeks were running. We caught quite a few frigid days.
Rob in a casual environment
Rob at the time worked daily eight hour shifts in the freezer section of a local food distribution warehouse. We asked 'em once how cold they kept the freezers. He said by regulation that they had to maintain 0ºF for the large freezers and that they typically maintained -10ºF (or colder). Cold paddling days were typically in the low 30's. Although, a check of the thermometer registered as low as 25ºF a few, rare freezing cold days we were out. No dry suits - wet suits, paddling jackets and neoprene gloves and boots.
The freezer work apparently had 'em well acclimated to the cold. Never, ever once heard 'em complain. Never mentioned the cold, nor weather for that matter. Subsequently, we couldn't either. If he ain't complaining, we ain't. Quite often we got back to the vehicle near dark. [At least our] fingers and toes too frozen to even remove gloves and boots. Rob's first step was an impromptu grab of an ice cold Budweiser from the ice packed beer cooler... "Ya' want one?"
Creekside with Strongman Matt, no slouch for the
cold himself, and Rob, on a balmy forty degree day
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Is this water really that cold?...
Strongman Matt at lower Colorado River boat launch,
viewing Hoover Dam and then under construction
Interstate 11/U.S. Route 93 bypass bridge
Black Canyon, lower Colorado River
Cold, but brief, swim
... or maybe it just feels "chilling to the bone" considering the abrupt transition from 102ºF dry desert heat to the 50ºF river. We did a bit of research and found that water is discharged from below the dam at a maximum depth of roughly 300 feet depending on reservoir water surface level. Deep water/bottom temperature (behind the dam) stays stable and cold at roughly 50ºF to 55ºF. As we recall from dive training, lake thermoclines typically form at roughly forty foot depth, with water temperature roughly around 40ºF down to the bottom. Added research indicated a Colorado river depth of 90 feet the reach of the Black Canyon section with water temperature typically between 50ºF to 53ºF.
Don't know. But given 2-3 minutes immersion we were ready to hop back on shore. Can't recall when we were in colder (feeling) water.
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