Buntzen Loop Complete!

A short update on a practice swim in Indian Arm and Buntzen Lake on Tuesday, Nov 06, 2018.

Total distance (including the unrecorded portion that is not registered on the profile image): 15.8 km

Swimming: 7.3 km

Hiking: 8.5 km

Elevation gain: 612 m

Total time: ~6 hr

Planning:

This loop has been attempted before in a 2-day trip in summer 2018, but the last hiking part wasn't finished that time. Documented in this trip report. Last time it seemed too short for a multi-day trip, so this time I decided to do it in a day. Map software promised ~ 7.4 km swimming = maximum of ~4 hrs hr and ~40 min walk between the lakes + 40 min faff. The sunset that week was ~4:30 pm and I wanted to have about 40 min leeway. The last stretch of hiking would be ok to do in dark as the trail is well known and I walked on it before. That made the start cut off at 11 pm.  Initially I picked Sunday, Nov 3rd as the start day as it was the first day after a heavy rain and the weather was promising. I posted an announcement on VOC and VOWSA asking if anyone wanted to join swimming or kayaking but never got a reply, so I decided to go alone. Solo swimming is not a safe thing to do and ideally shouldn't be done, same as solo backcountry skiing, solo cycling and solo hiking. I willingly accepted that risk knowing that the overall risk level form other factors is low (discussed later). I never go swimming alone unless no one replies to my invites.

The forecast for Sunday got worse, the wind speeds increased and made the likelihood of strong chop higher then I prefer. I choose not to go out is if the wind is stronger then 10 knots. Thus I changed the date of the swim to Tuesday, Nov 6th. That day the wind was much calmer, partially sunny but 1 mm of precipitation. I planned to start swimming at around 11 am, after a long flooding tide would start. 

Before the trip I contacted 2 people to check in with after each swim. We had a cut off time at 6 pm when the SAR would be contacted if I wouldn't check in by then. They knew my itinerary and my route. 

In the morning that day, the weather was good - partially cloudy, almost no air movement. 

I parked my bike at camp Howdy and at 11 am I was ready to start swimming, right after the flooding tide was gaining momentum. The current was ~0.3 km/hr as was reflected on my average speed: 2.5 km/hr in the sea and 2.2 km/hr in the lake. I was stopping a lot throughout the swim because I was getting tired quite fast. It is hard to be in a good shape throughout the study term. 

The water was colder then anything I swam before in for so long. My hands were getting numb towards the end of each swim to the point when I was loosing control over my fingers and couldn't keep them together. It is partially to blame my wetsuit that leaks from the sleeve entrances. The water in the lake was 8-9 deg C, but I can't be sure because I didn't have a thermometer. For a few days before the swim it was raining hard in Vancouver which might have affected the water temperature.  It would be curious to see the progression of my core temperature change throughout a trip like that, but I'm afraid that the only reliable way to measure core temperature during swimming would require quite invasive methods (i.e. rectal temperature measurement), so I will refrain from getting this piece of data for now.

In these solo swims, I try to keep close to the shore so that in case of a cramp or other sudden need I have 3 min of swimming to the shore. I also always carry a flotation device, in this case it was my 35 L dry bag that you can see on the picture bellow. It also serves as a mean of transportation for food, clothes, towel and water. On overnight trips I also carry camping stuff in it, but not on this trip (see gear list in the end)

Rainy weather in previous days before the swim has caused a few more complications: Floating debris and decreased underwater visibility. You can notice on the first figure (blue graph) there is a slight dip in speed in the beginning right after the start. That was caused by a big field of floating branches, small logs and various pieces of wood. Once I slowly passed through that field I haven't seen much debris elsewhere except for a few logs here and there. Small pieces of narrow roots were scaring me every time I stumbled upon them because they look like tentacles of jelly fish (even though the roots were black. Our vision is weird). Visibility would be a huge problem if the area in the sea inlet would be infested by Giant Maine as the last time I swam there. But luckily I haven't seen any jellies this time. According to, Wikipedia Giant Maine should not be around at this time in this area, but since I haven't seen any other jellies, it is possible that they all were keeping away from the top fresh water layer. One positive thing about this top fresh water layer was that it prevented my tongue from swelling and my skin getting more sore under the suit as it usually happens in salty water.

Once I reached the decommissioned powerhouse I decided not to take off the wetsuit and instead take on a waterproof jacket on top to prevent water evaporation. For a 30 min walk that was enough to keep me warm although I didn't feel cold in the end of first swimming section to start with. 

I checked in with my emergency contacts to make sure I'm on the right track and I'm feeling great. A also posted a quick update on FB.

The path between the lakes is very beautiful and barely ever walked (cus why would you, it's a dead end unless you swim or kayak beyond it). The trail is a bit hidden in the bushes but if you want to find it, you will have to go through the bushes starting on the Nort-Eastern lateral side of the powerhouse building and going straight away from it. You will end up on it soon. Just be careful on it the first 100 meters because it is quite exposed and slippery. The fall wouldn't be fatal but you'd spend quite some time removing the blackberry spikes from your ass. After that sketchy part it turns into an alley with a nice combination of long staircases and wide paths. Very pretty and mysterious place.

Once at the Buntzen Lake it didn't take me too long to transition back to swimming. Random hikers were taking pictures of me while I "wasn't seeing them", but nobody approached to ask how is the water. Funny, because I had a lot to tell about it. The water in the lake was by far the coldest I ever swum in. Although, thanks to my wetsuit already being wet I didn't experience the cold shock of water rushing in when you enter the water the first time. Again, I Always kept close to the shore in case I got a cramp. Even thought at the end of the swim I couldn't keep my fingers together again, my core temperature was comfortable throughout the swim.

Water level in the lake was unusually low and BC Hydro was actively dumping the water into and from the lake. Since the inflow is located 200 m to the left from the beach and the narrow outflow starts on the right, soon after the beech ends, a strong current was formed right at the beach. Throughout the park BC Hydro has many precautionary signs and every potential hazard is fenced, so it is weird that they kept the beach open during the active water dumping that could cause a less experienced swimmer get a ride all the way down to Indian Arm through the high pressure pipes (I know they have a thousand other precautions to prevent this, but it would still be scary to get dragged towards the water intake. Even if you are dragged by the current you would get stopped by a special net in the second lake. Also in the second lake the current slows down and you get a chance to get out. I wouldn't step into the water if I didn't know about all the safety features and wouldn't be certain that it is safe to do). I'm personally terrified by strong currents (it's just a phobia, no real danger was involved in this), so I tried to cross it as fast as possible. On the graph, right at the start of the second swim (you can tell by second constant elevation) my average speed is 3 km/hr and my direction is deflected towards the outflow. That was the most intense part of the swim because I was realizing that I'm getting dragged! 

Getting into fresh water from the salt water requires a bit of adaptation technique-wise. As you know, salty water is denser, thus it keeps you afloat better then fresh water, so when you get into fresh water right after swimming in the sea, you might feel like it is harder to swim. Obviously it is not harder at all, just requires getting used to the new feeling, but personally I freaked out quite a bit in the beginning when I gulped the water a few times during the first strokes, so that also could have influenced my speed in the first few hundred meters of lake swim.

The funny thing about swimming long distances in open water is that usually you can see you final destination from the start, so you have a visual contact with the finish line throughout the swim. Since our vision is surprisingly good, you see lots of details on the shore that you are swimming to. In my case, I started seeing silhouettes of people when I was half way through the lake. After that point I stopped noticing more details as I approached the shore all the way until I was about 100 m from the shore. This phenomenon caused me a weird feeling of swimming in one place throughout the distance between the half of the lake and 100 m to the shore. Once I reached that 100 m my perception of beach suddenly became very close. This is mildly annoying, but should be mitigated once I have a way to track my location from a phone while swimming or will go on its own with more experience. I reached the shore at 3:23 pm -  more then an hour before the sunset.

The transition to hiking was a bit faffy which caused even more heat loss so when I made the last photo of the trip my face looked blue. It took me another 20 min of hiking up the trail to be able to take off the down jacket and the hat. It wasn't by far the coldest I ever been though (Rohr Mountain debacle of 2017 and nights at Roger's Pass of 2016 gave me very good reference of how cold it must be for me to start worrying about hypothermia).

To be honest, the hiking part was the most challenging part of the trip as it was when I acutely felt the tiredness accumulated over the day. The sun was rapidly approaching the horizon, so I had to drag my stumbling legs across a fairly straightforward hiking path while doing about 250 of elevation gain. It was getting dark quickly when I realized that I have some chocolate candies. After I ate about 6 of them the surroundings turned a bit brighter and I stopped stumbling so often. 

Somewhere along the hike I realized that my phone battery was as low as 10% even though on the shore it was 45%. At that point I decided to turn on the flight mode on and turn off the GPS. I don't know what caused such a sudden drop, but it is likely something to do with it being in the bag under water. The radio waves of frequencies used by the phone can't penetrate through the water, so I usually put it in flight mode so that it doesn't try to connect to the stations and drain the battery (I did so this time too). I left the GPS running this time though, so that could have caused the increased battery usage. In fact, you can see that in sea portion, the GPS is not working for a good hour. This is possibly where it lost all its power. Never observed this phenomenon before. I recommend turning off all the connections on the phone while in the water to save energy.

I reached the bike at ~5 pm when I could still see something. I was unlucky enough to stumble upon the camp's guard whom I made very angry by trespassing his favorite camp without his permission. He reminded me of the sign on the entrance saying "The owner will SEVERELY prosecute the violators" - a phrase that kept me giggling throughout the swim. He gave me his number and asked to call him next time. 

On the way back to Port Moody I realized that I forgot my lights. A very dumb thing to do, knowing that the days are short and there is no road lighting north of Port Moody. (The lights were in my check list of things to take, but they remained lying on the floor when I came back home.) I had to hide in the road curbs every time the car was passing by so that it wouldn't hit me from behind. I got spotted doing this silly dash towards the curb by a driver of one of the passing cars and he decided to stop and give me a ride to SkyTrain station. Big thanks to them, they have possibly saved my life! This episode was by far the most dangerous of everything that happened that day, and, whta's more important, absolutely preventable. Always double-check your packs before you leave.

That night I ate 2 dinners and drank 2 L of mild electrolyte. The shoulder didn't bother me as much as it usually does, I guess the physio does it's job. 

Gear used:

3/4 mm wetsuit

2 mm neoprene socks

3 mm neoprene hood

silicone swimming cap

35 L drybag with a Ziplock storage bag inside for waterproofness (more info here)

Rain jacket for inter-swim hike

Down jacket for after the final swim