Safe swimming-distance from lake-outflux?

[Alpo Kuusisto]

Regarding the distance: IF I had to swim, I think I'd carry with me few sticks to throw to the lake near the outflux to estimate the current. And prepare by getting myself a good judgement on current speeds and swimming.

But I'd really carry a packraft to avoid swim. It's fun to have it with you anyway.

Adventure race Explore Sweden passed pretty close to your crossing two years ago.
These photos are from the beginning of the race in Lofoten, and show the standard crossing method for calm water.
http://www.exploresweden.se/live/photos.php?pageNum_photos=13&totalRows_photos=15
Mattress (available from Biltema) is cheap, faster than packrafts and doubles as a mattress (with a torso sized closed cell foam). Of course it's not too resistant to punctures. Weight is 1,75kg = about same as Alpackas.

Later, the race crossed river Rapaatno under Skierfe buttress. A team with one broken mattress decided to ferry one mattress back and forth, rather than put one member to swim. An hour waiting was judged better than 20 minute swim.

Post your story here after the trip please. Hiking the whole Norwegian-Swedish border is on my to-do list when I someday find three months for that.

[E.L. Boston]

As somebody with a sibling who trains military personnel in cold-water survival procedures, I can emphatically state that any person with knowledge and experience sufficient to complete this task would not be asking the questions you are.

If you carry through with your plan to swim, you will most likely die in the attempt. Period.

[Rob E]

I will just chime in to say that wading/standing/bobbing in cold water is vastly different from swimming. Having your entire body submerged while doing hard muscular/cardiovascular activity forces your heart to circulate blood to your extremities to feed the muscles resulting in much faster rates of cooling and faster onset of hypothermia.

I know people who have covered their bodies in vaseline for cold open water swims. Might be a technique to explore, as it could end up being lighter than a wetsuit or boat, but still don't encourage you to try unless in a safe/supervised scenario.

[David Thomas]

I don't know if Tor is still following this thread, but if so:

As Alpo suggested, throw some sticks. I'd put some refinements on that suggestion: You want the stick to be bright, so a few 10 cm bits of "flagging tape" – fluorescent orange plastic tape – tied around the stick would help visualize it. You want to see how that stick behaves in the worst flow path – which is towards the center of the outlet, but bottom conditions could cause it to be to the left or right of center.

How to throw sticks? A "wrist rocket" is used by 10 year old boys to kill small birds and "put an eye out" of a playmate. My local hardware store has them on sale for $4 every other month. A length of rubber tubing (3 or 4 meters) tied to two trees would give you MUCH more energy for your launch (or are you north of treeline?).

Or, instead of sticks, "range balls" – golf balls rented by the bucket to drive into a lake at the golf course FLOAT (that's how they retrieve them). Some are white. Some are fluorescent orange. All could be shot from a wrist rocket, rubber tubing between two trees, or from a Jai alai pelota (racket) or those long atlal-atlal type handle for throwing tennis balls for your dog to retrieve.

I think your original post wanted an informed opinion like, "water velocity will be less than 1 kph if you are 3.5 outlet-widths upstream of the lake outlet". I've studied and use a fair but of fluid dynamics and hydrology in my work and I can assure you that no such simple rule of thumb exists. If you show me a non-topographic map, I'll know nothing about water flow near the outlet. If you show me a map with topo lines for the land, I'll be guessing about the shape of the lake bottom. Only if you have bathymetric and river flow data for the time in question could I offer any estimate of how close to the outlet does the flow speed up. Broadly, the deeper the water you are in, the slower the flow. I can think of glacial lakes (I live in a very glacial area) that have a long, shallow area near the outlet (BAD for a swimmer). And I can think of other glacial lakes, typically with a terminal moraine at their outlet, that are very deep until very close to the outlet (not much of a detour for a swimmer).

Floating sticks would let you assess that on site.

Bathymetric maps would let you assess it in advance. PM me a link to a map if you want an opinion.

Best of all would be a companion who doesn't swim as fast as you do. If he gets sucked into the lake outlet and crushed on the rocks below, then you need to take a longer, more upstream path.

[Mike In Socal]

Hi Tor. I'm certainly not experienced with cold water swimming and there are obviously people here who are. But I like problem solving and planning which is why I enjoy the discussions on BPL. So, my question for you is, "what is your Plan B?" In other words, let's say things do not go as planned and your cold-water swim takes twice as long? What if the currents do push you through the outlet of the lake? Does that make it more difficult to get out of the water? I think if you start to answer those questions for yourself, you stand a better chance of accomplishing your goal. Be safe.

[Nick Gatel]

This thread is 4 months old, other than the recent Resurrection posts.

The OP planned to do this in Oct of last year. He has not posted since Sep.

Maybe he had no "Plan B" and "Plan A" did not work. That would explain is absence here.

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