Steve and I did a single dive at Roosevelt Lake yesterday (Saturday), late afternoon. Simply finding a place to get into the water, without killing yourself, was something of a chore.
No more than 20' from shore, the bottom dropped off abruptly at approximately a 45 degree angle. The slope was composed of various size large boulders and lots of submerged trees and went down as far as anyone would want to go. After hitting a thermocline at 60' and zero visibility at 75', we decided to call it quits and head for shallower water. What made the dive interesting is the fact that it was challenging and there was alot of structure along the slope going down.
One negative thing that I had repeatedly heard about Roosevelt was that the visibility was extremely poor. To be honest, I found it to be on a par with Lake Pleasant.
This was our first dive at Lake Roosevelt and agreed that neither of us would recommend the site ("Vineyard" - day picnic area) to a beginning or novice diver. However, if you do go, be sure to bring a good light, a compass and a knife. That lake is one deep, dark and cold hole.
Bill
It was nothing short of a quest to find a place for a shore entery. Janet and I were hopefull that there would be a good shore entery point near our campsite. Not to be though. All the campsites were way above the shoreline. Roosevelt is 90% full at this time (elevation 2143'). Normal high water elevation is 2151'; maximum elevation (200 year flood stage) is 2175'
We had checked out three or four locations but they were either to steep to get down or you would have to swim through a forest to get to any depth. I went to the visitor center to see if the rangers there could point me in the right direction. The gal behind the counter hadn't heard of anybody diving from the shore there. We poured over my Fish-N-Map Co's Roosevelt map and she pointed out some possible spots ajacent to the picnic or day use sites. They were close to the shore and we might be able to find a place to enter.
The place we ended up diving at was called Vineyard Cove Picnic area, near the Cholla campsite. The parking lot is pretty high above the water but there is a stairway that takes you down to water level. The shoreline there has a lot of small trees and shrubs. On the far side of the parking lot there is a trail that leads past several good entery points. We ended up walking about 100 yards to the end of the trail to get into the water.
Like Bill said there is a severe drop off just a few feet off shore. From there it gets very deep very fast. There are a lot of ledges and outcropings that serve as "landing zones" when you're descending and become overhead obstructions if you're below them. If you swim more than a few yards away from the "wall" and descend you WILL wonder where the bottom is. This is in contrast to the defined tiers found at Lake Pleasant. We found ourselves at 77 feet, zero vis, dark as midnight and nothing but a black void below us. You really have to have good bouyancy control because there are no visual references. You need good buddy skills too. It's easy to lose your buddy when the task loading starts to pile up.
We swam back and ascended by the nearly vertical wall to about 30 feet. The light was a lot better and the vis was again pretty good. We saw a lot of bass and panfish as we explored parallel to the shoreline. I noted a couple of times when a large rock became dislodged and came rolling down the wall. I heard one tumbling but didn't know where it was until it hit one of my fins. Mental note; Don't hang to close to the wall. The topography was very interesting though. Big boulders and lots of nooks and crannies to explore. You can find enough to keep you interested in 30 to 50 feet of depth
I agree with Bill's recommendation. This is not a dive site for the novice. If you tend to lose your buddy, this is a site you should probably skip. To be fair our dive took place at around 5:00pm. The sun had already set behind the mountain by the time we splashed in. Visibility at depth may have been better in full sunlight.
I did scope out a couple of other spots. One is at Cottonwood Cove. Another day use site. There is a "road closed" sign in the back of the parking lot. Past the sign is a trail that leads to the shore. Not quite as steep as Vista Point but about as far. And there are a lot of small trees you have to work around after you get into the water.
Another one is right behind the Visitor's Center. There is a small boat ramp. If you drive down the ramp and turn left you can drive along the shore. There are several good looking sites. This weekend it was pretty muddy there and I didn't want to risk getting stuck. I think that there are some other better dive sites that we didn't get to. We're planning on returning in the spring to do some more exploring.
If you go...CALL ME! You probably won't be able to dive from your campsite. We camped at Cholla just a couple of miles from where we dove. If you can make it a boat dive, there will be more areas available. I'm looking forward to returning and doing more exploring. From where I live it's only about a half hour further than going to Lake Plasant so if somebody is camping up there and need a dive buddy, let me know.
Steve.
