ICE DIVING
Diving under ice is one of the most extreme forms of diving you can get. The overhead environment, the cold, the lines, the potential for disorientation; it all takes a lot of skill to overcome. However, I highly recommend it; it is sure to make you a better diver, even if you never plan to go again.
I first learned of the
excitement of ice diving when I was a new instructor in 2013. My friend and coworker at the time was an ice diving instructor and he made it sound so cool (literally and figuratively). Both the challenge of diving in a frozen overhead environment and the beauty of the ice appealed to me and I wanted to take the course right away. However, we lived near Vancouver, BC so we would have to travel to find a place with thick enough ice. He also said we needed more people, and I was the only one keen enough to want to organize it. At the time I had thought he just wanted more people to make it worth his time to teach. I would eventually find out that was not the case.
The next few years I spent in warmer areas, and ice diving was never mentioned. It was on my bucket list, but it didn’t seem like something that I would get to do for a very long time. Finally, in February 2020 I started a new job back near Vancouver, and when I went in to see the shop for the first time, they were packing for an ice diving trip that weekend. I was unable to join them then, but working somewhere that did trips like that excited me. I wanted to sign up for next year's trip. Then COVID hit. I still signed up for the 2021 trip, hoping COVID would be over by then, but as we all know it wasn’t over, and the trip was postponed. 2022 rolled around and it was finally happening, the trip was a go!
The dive shop I worked at partnered up with T4 Scuba in Calgary, Alberta. These guys are the ice diving pros. The team has been ice diving for many years and have gotten it down to a science. Not only do they know ice diving and the lake we’d be diving at inside and out, they also relentlessly invest in making their ice set up better. The amount of gear they have for people, as well as to just make the experience more enjoyable is incredible. On top of that, they’re always trying to improve and try new things.
We had had an orientation and gone over what to bring at the shop I worked for, then on February 17 we headed up to Canmore, Alberta from the coast. I carpooled with three of my good dive buddies. It was a long trip but having a good group in the truck made it go by decently. We arrived in Canmore and checked into our hotel, meeting up with others on the trip in the process. We had the evening and next morning to hang out and socialize at our own pace.
At noon the next day we met up with the T4 team at the Lake Minnewanka main parking lot. As soon as we saw them I was surprised. They had a trailer that they were unloading. I’d never been on a dive that had so much gear a trailer was required. After some quick introductions we jumped straight into it and were each given a loaded sled to bring down to the dive site. For the next hour or so everyone dragged loads from the parking lot down onto the ice. The trailer the T4 team brought was full of ice diving equipment, including the main thing we were bringing - piece by piece - down to the dive site; the tent.
The tent was a retired US army tent. Of course, the T4 team knew exactly where each piece went and how everything connected. They gave instructions and worked with us to get it up and standing. There were around 20 people – both new ice diving students, and experienced ice enthusiasts from the T4 team - setting up the site, and it took all of us to get it up. There were three main posts in the middle on the inside, five posts on each long edge and three on the short edges. It took teamwork and coordination to get it all together, but we managed. Then we had to dig snow and pack it around the bottom edges of the tent.
The snow we dug was done in a specific pattern. Two huge circles around the tent, one about 30 m from the tent, the other about 15 m from the tent, then spokes radiating out from the tent (like a wagon wheel). These would be for navigation aids. This may not sound like a lot of work, but we were all sweating shoveling that much snow. Once that was done, the most exciting part happened; cutting the hole. T4’s leader, Terry, was on the chainsaw cutting through the ice. They had pre-made boards for the edge of the hole that he laid down to trace the size he needed. Then the boards were removed, and he started cutting.
The ice this year was so thick he needed to get a longer blade to get through it all. He cut a large rectangle, then cut a strip along one short edge and one long edge. Those strips he cut into smaller pieces. Once he was done cutting, we had to remove the ice from the hole. For this we used ice screws. One screw per small piece. Once the screw was all the way in, we’d shove the little block down into the water a few times to build momentum then when the water was pushing the block back up we’d pull along with it to remove it. Once all the small pieces were removed, we just had the big block left floating freely. This would be too big and heavy to safely drag out, so as a team we pushed it down and shoved it under the ice. We had attached ice screws and line to it, so at the end of our adventure we could pull it back out to help close our hole.
Finally, around five set up was done and we all headed back to Canmore for our ice diving classroom session. We were all thoroughly worn out by this point - set up had been a lot of work.
We had a room booked at the hotel, and there Terry and his team lead us through our class while we munched down on pizza. There is no PADI student manual for ice diving, so everything we needed to know had to come straight from our instructor's mouth, or his own power point. The classroom session was long, but there was a lot to go over. As we had started to learn earlier that day, ice diving is a team effort.
The next day we met on the ice at nine. We brought our gear down to the tent, and then helped the T4 team bring even more gear down. They had a second small tent to set up today. The smaller tent would house the “kitchen” so we could have hot drinks and food between dives. Ice diving wouldn’t start until we had hot water ready to go to help thaw anything (or anyone) frozen. Once the final set up was complete the dives could begin.
Once again, the T4 team’s planning and organization surprised me. They had a white board with all our buddy teams rotations on it, so it was perfectly panned out who would be doing what when. The reason we needed this? For two people to be in the water ice diving, you need a team of six people. Two in the water with ropes attached to them, two out of the water taking control of the ropes and one buddy team of safety divers. For today, we also had to be aware of our instructors and how long they were in the water, as we needed to ensure they didn’t freeze as well.
All the other groups had two dives on the first day, however myself and my buddy had three. We were both doing our instructor level ice diving course so would have to do ten ice dives over this weekend. We had a lot of work ahead of us.
Now that the diving had begun, I could truly appreciate why the T4 team had put so much work and organization into this. Ice diving takes a level of teamwork and coordination I'd never experienced in diving before. Because the water is so cold, you need to minimize the amount of time anyone spends just sitting around in the water waiting. This means everyone not getting geared up or on the lines is helping divers get ready as quickly as possible. Tasks like putting fins on are usually done by someone else, clipping regs or sidemount tanks to yourself is done with assistance of those out of the water. Once you do finally get into the water, lines are clipped to you and away you go.
While underwater, you can’t simply forget about life on the surface. You're in constant communication with your rope tenders through tugs on the line. Throughout the dive you must ensure the line is taut. You do this by using your rope tugging communication with the surface and telling them to release more line or pull some back in. If the line goes slack it becomes a safety hazard as you can no longer communicate with the surface.
On the surface side, the rope tenders must be constantly paying attention. The line is marked, so you can see how far out your divers are, and you have to keep track of that, as well as making sure you’re paying attention to the divers communication and accurately pulling or releasing line. You also need to constantly move around the hole to ensure you’re getting the best angle to feel the tugs on the rope, and that it isn’t rubbing on the edge of the ice.
The team of rescue divers needs to be in their drysuits and have their gear ready to go. Once the divers descend the rescue team starts putting their gear on. This way if they need to perform a rescue, they’re ready to go. For our organization, the rescue team would be the next team to dive. That way they’re already in their gear, eliminating extra time our instructors would have to wait around in the water and freeze.
When the divers return to the surface, once again it’s all hands on deck. Everyone who isn’t diving or tending ropes jumps to help the divers out of the water and out of their gear then get the next group in. When you’re not doing one of your assigned roles, you’re still doing things. The snow outside on our navigation circles and spokes needs to be constantly shoveled. That snow is then dumped in the tent on patches of water. If the water brought up by divers was just left on the ice, it would freeze and become very slippery. By putting snow on top of it you create texture making it easier to walk on.
People not currently diving are also constantly helping those that are, by helping get gear organized and helping those who just got out of the water thaw out. There was a constant stream of hot chocolate and food to be delivered to cold divers. We also had coolers filled with hot water that divers could stand in (in their drysuits of course) to warm their feet, put their hands in, or even just pour over their heads. Every effort was made to ensure divers could warm up after their dive. We had many people at the site that weren’t even diving, just there to help, and help they did!
The dives themselves were relatively uneventful. There was almost no aquatic life, but seeing the ice underwater was incredibly beautiful. You could spend ages just blowing bubbles and watching them hit the ice then dance around. The bubbles would roll around the bottom of the ice till they disappeared in every direction, like water being dumped on the ground, but upside down. In some areas there were also unique formations in the ice caused by it cracking and refreezing. You could spend the entire dive in the top ten feet and be mesmerized the entire time. We were on an old dam site, so seeing the remnants was pretty neat as well, if you could pull your eyes away from the ice.
The first day out there was mostly just a blur of diving, rope tending and helping others dive. It was a long day and by the time everyone had finished the sun was just about to set. We were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel.
Our second day was supposed to be more relaxing, as everyone else only had to complete one dive, and they could do a second if they wanted. We also generally knew what to do, so it would run smoother. However, as I mentioned before, my buddy and I were doing our instructor level which meant we needed to do seven dives today. A second hole was cut for us outside the tent, and we had our own team of surface support out there to help us.
Diving outside the tent in our own hole was a whole different experience. The tent kept the wind the weather away from us, while keeping the heat in. On day one no one experienced regs freezing and gear clipped and unclipped without issue. This was not the case today. While we sat on the ice on the edge of our hole there was no protection, and the temperature had dropped. We were both diving sidemount, and our clips kept freezing shut. We had small jugs of warm water to pour over clips to unfreeze them long enough to open. A few times we had to get in the water with free flowing regs and just breathe with our heads in the water for a bit to get them to stop. The water was much warmer than sitting on the edge of the hole, but it was still cold. That day I was very glad to have my heated shirt.
Dive after dive we did, and colder and colder we got. I was beyond grateful for our surface support; I don’t think we’d have been able to do it without such amazing help. Many times, sitting on the edge of the ice my suit completely froze, making it so I couldn’t move my arms. My team would clip my tanks to me and give me my reg, then help push me into the water to thaw my suit. They would pour warm water over our heads and give us jugs of water to put our hands in. Despite how cold it was our rope tender, Paige, never complained, and always did an amazing job of keeping the line taut. It was great for us to feel the difference from our day one line tenders, who were still learning the ropes, to a seasoned veteran, who knew exactly how much line to give and how hard to pull to communicate. It was much easier to enjoy our dives having a pro on the other end.
We were still diving as everyone else finished their dives and started disassembling the tent and breaking down the site. When we finally finished all seven dives and got out of the water, the tent was down, so we couldn’t go warm up and get out of our drysuits there. I made the unwise decision to walk up to the parking lot in my gear. This is what I would normally do at home, but here in the cold, by the time I got to the cars my suit and all my gear was completely frozen and I was stuck. My suit was so hard I could barely move my arms, and all my clips on my BCD were frozen shut. I tried to take my hood off, and the neoprene was so frozen it wouldn’t stretch over my head. I had others try to help, but everything was too frozen to come loose. I ended up having to get in a car with a tarp on the seat – BCD, hood, drysuit and all – to try to thaw enough to take things off. Finally, someone brought us some luke-warm water that had been in the tent, and the combination of that and the thawing I'd done in the car was enough to get me out of my gear. By this time, the site was almost totally packed down, the only thing left was marking the hole.,
Leaving a giant hole in the ice would be very hazardous for anyone who came after us, so we had to close both holes as best we could and clearly mark them. The big block that we had previously pushed under the ice was dragged back out mostly filling the hole. Of course, the edges where we had cut out the small strips were still missing, but with the big block back in place this should freeze over quickly. We then put all the small blocks we had pulled out of the ice around the hole, making it more obvious that this wasn’t just a smooth expanse of ice. Lastly, we wrapped hazard tape around the blocks clearly marking where the hole had been. With all this in place, no one could accidentally fall into our hole.
The work involved may deter some people, but both the beauty of the ice and the skills of diving, teamwork and coordination make ice diving well worth it. Even the cold teaches you valuable skills. Being so frozen and having to work past it and think through everything is an important skill to have. Ice diving is one of the most challenging dive courses I've ever taken, but without a doubt has made me a better diver. I would highly recommend the course to anyone, even if you never want to do it again. I would also highly recommend doing it with the T4 team. Their passion and dedication to the sport knows no bounds, and I was thoroughly impressed by their preparation and support throughout the whole weekend.
