Saturdays and Sunday mornings at the recreation center are reserved for scuba-divers-in-training; and the fall and winter seasons are often the busiest for certifying novice divers, said Donna Sloan-Adams, scuba instructor and organizer of the Montrose Dive Club, which has anywhere up to 16 members at a time.
Inspired perhaps by a sense of adventure, Coloradans take to pools and nearby lakes around November to ready themselves for trips to the Cozumel, Mexico, Belize and beyond. Emily Zwaan, of Beaver Divers in Vail, said people get certified during the cold seasons in anticipation of summer trips.
 The Homestead Crater, a 55-foot tall, beehive-shaped limestone rock filled with 90 to 96-degree water, is a popular place among locals to certify scuba divers. The crater is the only warm water scuba diving destination in the continental U.S. and it attracts many diving enthusiasts and those wishing to get certified in a comfortable environment. (Photo courtesy of Homestead Resort, Midway, UT) Advertisement |
Montrose residents Kyle and Jane Rice are among those scuba divers who save all year to dive in places like the Galapagos.
“They call Colorado the colorful state but when you get underwater and see the colors — it’s unbelievable,” said Kyle Rice, a scuba diver who got certified in 1980 but became serious about the sport in 2001.
The couple’s enthusiasm for scuba is contagious. They talk a mile a minute on the topic, each interrupting the other to point out a detail, share an anecdote from one of many trips.
“Some times we don’t want to come home,” said Jane Rice
But they do.
The couple has traveled all over the world and still haven’t found a place they love more than Montrose, Rice said.
“It’s not a cheap sport ... but you live accordingly,” Kyle Rice said. “By far (the sacrifice is worth it). Some people, especially if they were very ambitious, do four trips a year.”
Local spots
The Western Slope is home to an abundance of bodies of water but few offer much in the way of scenery or visibility. They do offer something for those who don’t want to travel far, those who want to get wet and those who want to maintain their training, said Larry McWhirter, who opened Blue Mesa Diving in Montrose in 1978, three years after he became a certified scuba diving instructor. Though he no longer hosts local trips, McWhirter spent much time training people at several spots, including Blue Mesa Reservoir and Grand Mesa.
With a length of 20 miles, Blue Mesa offers countless dive spots and variety. The reservoir can be a good spot for collecting things people drop like fish tackle, said Tim Decker, owner of Black Canyon Divers.
Just south of the reservoir’s big bridge, there are also walls or drop-offs, McWhirter said. “You’re pushing the limits because of the altitude but you can actually go down a gentle slope until you hit the drop of the Black Canyon,” he said.
High altitude diving — and anything above sea level is considered high — requires advanced training. The danger with this kind of diving is that the swimmer is under less ambient pressure when surfacing, and ambient pressure is what holds nitrogen bubbles in solution, McWhirter explained. When this nitrogen escapes it forms little bubbles all over the body, especially the joints, knees and spine, causing divers to bend from the pain. That’s where the condition, which can paralyze if nitrogen reaches the spine, got the name “the bends,” he said. (More on diving-related health issues, see resources).
Divers and dive instructors praise the safety of the sport but also warn about proper training.
“(The bends are) serious but — and I want to stress the but — if you are properly trained and you simply pay attention, (scuba diving) is an extremely safe sport,” said McWhirter. “It’s analogous to driving down the highway ... If we jumped on the highway and drove like a bat out of you know where, its going to be dangerous ... diving is no different.”
Around and near Colorado
Outside of the Western Slope, companies such as Beaver Divers frequent spots such as Sylvan Lake, which is close to a 183-mile drive from Montrose, and Cataract Lake, which is a little more than 253 miles away.
In cold lakes, Zwaan hosts dry-suit dives in the fall. This type of diving involves wearing a suit that is completely sealed around your neck and feet.
“You wear a very thick fleece undergarment ... it’s really warm,” she said. “We usually do trips in Fall, when the water is the warmest at 48 to 55 degrees. It’s totally dry but it takes a lot of training. It’s a different way of diving that throws your buoyancy off.”
While divers can see seagrasses, trout and other fishes, dives at local spots are more about training than leisure.
Hundreds of miles away, however, divers travel to enjoy leisurely diving in neighboring states.
Roughly 330 miles from Montrose, in Utah, many students from Colorado complete the open water requirement of their certification at Homestead Crater or “The Crater” at Midway, Utah. Its a 55-foot tall beehive-shaped limestone rock filled with 90 to 96-degree water to a depth of about 60 feet.
Local divers also make a trip out to Bonneville Seabase, located 40 miles from downtown Salt Lake City. The spot is a geo-thermally heated and salt water dive spot filled with tropical fishes, sharks and other marine species. Both of these dive locations are extremely popular and require advanced reservations.
Lake Powell, also in Utah, is another frequented spot by local divers.
“For any kind of reasonable travel time that offers some decent diving (Lake Powell is good),” said McWhirter. “We’ve seen visibility up to 30 to 50 feet — For around here, that’s phenonmenal. There’s a lot of fish, a lot of marine life, I’ve never actually found them but there’s supposed to be some (Native) Indian petroglyphs on some of those walls.”
A state of scuba divers
Colorado reportedly has one of the highest number of divers per-capita of all inland states in the country — a figure cited generously by local divers and organizations such as Colorado State University and the Underwater Education & Training Center of New England.
If it’s any indication of the popularity of the sport in the state, Scuba Schools International, a global education and business support company, is headquartered in Fort Collins.
Local divers believe Coloradans’ innate sense of adventure is the top reason for the high number of divers. “Colorado’s also an adventure state, we’re just an active state,” said Sloan-Adams.
Mountain people, who live at high elevations and constantly travel between elevations, are probably just well equipped for a sport like scuba diving in which participants must routinely clear their ears, Rice said.
The relatively young age of most Coloradans might also play a role in the concentration of certified scuba divers in the state, Decker commented.
“It’s something different from day to day living in Colorado,” he said. “It’s just a unique thing to do.”
Starting costs:
Open Water Diving Course
• $300 per person — open water basic certification
• $325 per person (estimated costs for locations in Utah) — open water diver course, not including meals or transportation.
SOURCE — BLACK CANYON DIVERS
*Costs vary from business to business.
Other resources:
Montrose Dive Club: Donna at 249-5228; or e-mail watergirl@bresnan.net
Diving-related health issues: www.diversalertnetwork.org
Contact Lisa Huynh via email at lisah@montrosepress.com
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