Winter swimming Bled
Right in the middle of the coldest period of this past winter there was the inaugral Bled cup for winter swimming in Lake Bled Slovenia. I had arranged to show my short movie Winter swiming there so I duly made a long weekend of it and took a 10 hour train ride passing through the Bohemian forest and the High Tauren in Austria, a beautiful journey with views to some of the big saw toothed peaks of the Austrian alps….
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Winter swimming in Jinan, China, 1st jan 2012, (photo Roman Karkachev)
China is as we all know a vast country, holding something like one fifth of the world’s total population. Apart from images of the great wall and various stereotypes perhaps involving rice and chopsticks what else do we know about about China? A lot I hear some of you say. Mayb,e but have you ever thought about the climate of a vast country like china especially considering the bands of latitude that it spans?
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Swept away at the start the fastest 2 are evn faster
After 2 years of ice and extremely difficult conditions this year and last year have seen a toboggan ride swim downstream the river Metuje. Undoubtedly good fun but also undoubtedly too short, and an unfair test with great difficulty in measuring performance levels in such fast flowing water. However, it doesn’t have to be extreme every time you enter the winter water
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Better late than never is a phrase I have known all my life and its often true including in the context of me finally getting round to reporting on the 3rd year of the Shengen swim from Austria to the Czech Republic and also posting the video….
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The Vltava river, Prague
After 3 weeks of well below freezing temperatures down to as low as -20c in the city itself the big thaw finally came and the mercury shot up remarkably and with it came the inevitable changes that nature brings to the environment. The pictures here show the Vtava river in Prague on Wednesday 22nd of February. Around 7 km upstream is the confluence with the smaller Berounka river and it was this tributary that brought the ice.
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Milan Stencl of PK Zabreh holds a nice streamline shape in the 3c water
After the drama of the previous week in Hradec the Ticha Orlice was flowing fast enough that there was no chance of anything but a downstream ride. The water may have been just 3c but quite frankly the 750m test held no fears for the experienced winter swimmers although judging by the expressions on exiting the water this point is debatable!
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Writing about an event that took place over 1 month ago isn’t easy but in the case of this winter swimming competition it stuck in the mind (& the fingertips!).
A mild winter, but more importantly for the Labe river very little precipitation meaning less water and therefore a slow rate of flow. 15m/minute is the cut off point in Czech winter swimming and if the flow rate exceeds this then it is deemed unsafe to swim upstream and therefore the contest will be downstream only. The informationn that filtered through on the day was that this was the first time in the 40 year history of the contest that it had been held in still water conditions. Nobody knoew what to expect and this made for an interesting event.
Sometimes inspiration comes from the smallest things and thats why I am writing this post to compliment a seemingly random piece of amateur video footage. Watch the clip and you will see me escorting my friend Ondrej into the 5c Vltava river in Prague, Czech Republic last Sunday. Ondrej is blind, thats why I helped him. He hasn’t been swimming since some time last year but decided to come for the traditional January christening of winter swimmers. It took courage for him to get into the water. As you will see he only swam for a short time but it proves again that there are no barriers to getting in to open water, even in the winter!
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Speaking from experience Lake Bled, nestled underneath the Julian alps at an altitude of 475m is a fantastic location for winter swimming. The area will of course be carpeted in snow during the winter months but the lake doesn’t freeze over and the surface temperature remains at around 4c. This is due to the slightly thermal springs that supply the lake with its water. so there is the prospect of beautiful winter scenery and nice winter water.
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Reading some of the stories from Jack London and listening to the knowledge of the people of the north, getting wet is to be avoided at all costs so the concept of making a swim however short in the waters of the Norton sound at Nome is a somewhat strange proposition and a complete paradox for the local people.
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