Mapping the Lake

[boulderjohn]

I thought some of you Santa Rosa diving aficionados might appreciate a description of a project we have started--attempting to figure out what Rock Lake actually looks like. I wrote a report here.

 

[Jewls]

John,

Thanks for sharing your lake mapping experience at Rock Lake. For a newbie like me this sounds very intimidating, but extremely interesting and worthwhile. I look forward to reading future posts in your thread and what your teams find, learn and experience. It sounds as if mapping the lake is a new experience for you. Have you or do you have any future plans for mapping lakes in Colorado by any chance? Just wondering

Thanks again for sharing this with us!

 

[boulderjohn]

John,

Thanks for sharing your lake mapping experience at Rock Lake. For a newbie like me this sounds very intimidating, but extremely interesting and worthwhile. I look forward to reading future posts in your thread and what your teams find, learn and experience. It sounds as if mapping the lake is a new experience for you. Have you or do you have any future plans for mapping lakes in Colorado by any chance? Just wondering

This is the first time we have ever attempted it. One of problems is figuring out the best ways to do things. That is also what makes it fun.

We have no other plans to map anything else for a couple of reasons:

1. This project will probably take a couple of years, depending upon how much time we can devote to the project on our monthly (at most) visits and who shows up each month. We also do technical diving instruction during those visits, and it is possible that little can be done some months because of that.

2. We don't know any other lake that needs it. Most of the Rocky Mountain lakes are shallow reservoirs with nondescript bottoms and nothing worth noting. The Blue Hole has been mapped before, and on a good day you can pretty much see the whole thing from the surface, so a map wold do you no good.

 

[Jewls]

Good points on answers 1 and 2. I understand Rock Lake is mainly used for Tech Dive Instruction and you need special permission to enter the lake for diving. Perhaps some of your Tech Students will be interested in helping you over the course of the mapping project. If I had the experience, I know I would want to. Sounds like fun and a great learning experience.

A couple other questions now that I think of it….
What do you plan to do with the map once it is finished?
Will you be providing a topography map or mainly general information on depth, distance, viz, temp, areas of interest, etc?

 

[boulderjohn]

Good points on answers 1 and 2. I understand Rock Lake is mainly used for Tech Dive Instruction and you need special permission to enter the lake for diving. Perhaps some of your Tech Students will be interested in helping you over the course of the mapping project. If I had the experience, I know I would want to. Sounds like fun and a great learning experience.

A couple other questions now that I think of it….
What do you plan to do with the map once it is finished?
Will you be providing a topography map or mainly general information on depth, distance, viz, temp, areas of interest, etc?

I am not a tech instructor, but this is pretty much a tech student + instructor project from the start.

I am sure that the finished map will be shared with those who dive there somehow. We haven't discussed that. Our goal is to create a 3-D map that will show the contours of the walls at various depths, as well as the depths of the lake itself in various locations. (I have never seen the bottom, but I understand it is very uneven.)

I can tell you about temp and viz right now.

The temperatures this past weekend were uniformly 57°F on our bottom timers, which generally read a couple of degrees higher than just about any computer. In the summer the lake goes to maybe 61, although there can be a very defined thermocline hitting as much as 70°F shallow. Late this summer rising from 35' to 30' feet felt like stepping into a hot tub.

Visibility varies dramatically by the time of the year. Right now it is pretty good--we can usually see about 30 feet down from the surface. In late summer it can be worse if there is an algae bloom--this past summer was particularly bad for that. A lot depends upon the amount of wispy dead material falling into the lake from the plants on the edge and descending down to the start of the cliffs. On Sunday we were doing a swimming deco stop at about 30 feet in the southwest region, and there was a decent breeze out of the southwest. It was like swimming through a snow storm as all that fluff being blown in dropped down past us. (I have never seen that happen before.)

In good visibility and sunlight there is still some ambient light at 100 feet. That goes away very quickly after that. Even on the brightest days and best visibility, by the time you get to 150 feet it is extremely dark. This summer it was very dark at 100 feet as well.

 

[boulderjohn]

I understand Rock Lake is mainly used for Tech Dive Instruction and you need special permission to enter the lake for diving.

Rock Lake is used for advanced instruction, but not necessarily tech. Of the people diving there last weekend, only half had any technical certification at all. We have students doing UTD Recreational Essentials classes and other such certs there. If you want to join our group and get some of this training there, just let me know. The minimum certification for diving there is only AOW.

 

[Jewls]

Wow, the map sounds more detailed and complex than I had previously imagined. I found site dedicated to lake diving locations and thought this might interest you in submitting some basic details about Rock Lake Lake Diver freshwater lakes, rivers, quarries, and springs scuba diving resources including maps, reviews, and comments. :: New Mexico Perhaps in time, the map your team creates can be posted somewhere public so that other curious divers such as myself can find points of interest to dive.

From your temp and viz readings this last weekend, it sounds like it’s a prime time for diving the lake, minus the “snow storm” you encountered in the lake due to wind and debris. I had a similar experience diving in Mexico last June/July when the zooplankton blooms were in effect. It was like diving in a thick soupy cloud of particles with limited vizability starting about 30’ and above, but I’m sure it was nothing compared to your experience. I think this may have also been increased by the early morning rain, and fresh water sitting on top of the salt water forcing the zooplankton down. It was a pretty interesting experience, however, I’m not sure I would want to encounter the algae bloom in a lake during late summer.

Anyhow, I would be interested to see what the conditions are in early and late spring at Rock Lake. Perhaps the water temps will be higher and vizability will still be decent before the algae blooms are at their peak. Do you know if the UTD courses are offered year round? I might be interested in participating this spring or even late fall, if you’d like to pass along some more info via PM. (I don’t want to hijack the thread )

 

[boulderjohn]

Do you know if the UTD courses are offered year round? I might be interested in participating this spring or even late fall, if you’d like to pass along some more info via PM. (I don’t want to hijack the thread )

Don't worry about hijacking the thread--I really didn't expect much commentary of any sort. It was primarily a FYI.

UTD classes are offered whenever you and the instructor can make it happen. If you are interested, you can let me know or go right to George, the instructor, directly (rookers on ScubaBoard). We are having another person at the shop get certified to do the recreational classes, so you may have a different instructor for those classes. It will be the same crowd, though.

 

[charlieo]

Hi John,
I believe there has been some mapping work done on Rock Lake several years ago. I have an old phone number for one of the divers. If you PM me I'll give it to you. I have spoken with him and I don't think he would mind sharing his infomation.
Frank

 

[Jewls]

Thanks John. I'll have contact rookers for some more info. I plan to do my Rescue Cert this summer, so I just need to decide if I can do UTD before or after Rescue.