The freezing wind engraves my calves and cheeks as I walk in my swim parka across frozen Lake Memphremagog in far northern Vermont. The air is about 6 degrees (-14℃), really twelve below zero (-24℃) with the wind that is whipping the flags from countries, states, and swim clubs at the south end of the two-lane, 25-meter pool that has been cut into the ice.
It is TOTALLY COLD, as promised by the Lake Memphremagog Winter Swimming Society, which hosted its tenth annual Winter Swimming Festival here in Newport, on February 22, 23, and 24 with 169 swimmers plus 40 volunteers.
I am a first-timer, which they call a “virgin.” There are also “escorts” (warm people who walk cold swimmers to and from the water); “hookers” (who walk the pool sidelines with a hook to pull you out in an emergency); “strippers” (who help you get out, and into, your parka before and after swimming); and “huggers” (who help you get warmed up post-swim). The whole thing is run by the enthusiastic volunteers and Phil White, a Charles Bukowski-quoting former lawyer who has put this corner of the world on the ice and marathon swimming world map with his Kingdom Games events.
How the hell did I get here?
I’m not a fast or particularly good open water swimmer. I’m a mere mortal among the goddesses of the wild swimming world. I didn’t start competing until I was 49, ten years ago. I’ve only swum in water less than 40 degrees a handful of times, for only a few minutes. So, how the hell did I get here?
Friends. Crazy, wonderful people who become friends, are the roads that all lead to crazy, wonderful wild swimming, including ice swimming.
What happened was this. My Dolphin Club friends Elaine Van Vleck and Suzie Dods (you can read about Susie and her weirdly-fun 24-hour swim relay) returned from the 2023 winter swimming festival and couldn’t stop talking about The FUN. The COMMUNITY. The HATS.
“You could totally do it,” Elaine told me in the sauna, and my brain lit up at the idea that I probably could do it. At least I could find out if I could do it. “And I need you for our entry in the hat parade.”
Hat parade? I’m in.
Ten months after registering for the hat competition and the 25-meter freestyle, I’m standing with about 20 other smiling, jittery swimmers in the holding pen, the foyer of The Eastside Pub & Restaurant, which graciously hosts this tribe of lunatics each year. Our swim briefing had taken place in the bar, with the safety leader standing on a table yelling to remind people to not start drinking until they are done with ALL of their swims for the day, and cautioning us to cover up every inch of skin before we walk to the pool today because of the risk of immediate frostbite.
The Water Will Burn
I know that the water will hurt, even more than in yesterday’s hat competition when the air was 40℉/4℃, the water 34℉/1℃, and I swam breaststroke. This is considered some of the coldest water in ice swimming (defined as water that is 41℉/5℃ or below) competitions around the world and it is the only one in North America held in a lake-cut pool. 🥶
I know this water will bite me like a wild animal seeking shelter in my warm body.
I know this water will steal my hands and make them BURN like they’re in scalding water while I swim and while I recover. Stop. Stop. Stop brain! I exhale, shake off the anticipatory anxiety, and focus on the smiles, the whoops, and the high fives. One smiling swimmer tells me: “I’m nerv-cited! Nervous and excited! They feel the same.”
I tell myself: I choose to do this because it’s hard and because it's fun. I can do more than I think I can.
For my 25-meter freestyle heat (look at me using swim meet terms!), I'm paired with Elliot, a 43-year-old guy from Massachusetts who swims all year in the ocean. This is his fifth year at the ice swimming festival. Got any tips for a virgin?
“In this water, every time is like the first time,” he tells me.
Every two minutes, a pair of swimmers is called and told which pool lane they will have and then is released to the ice.
What I’m wearing:
A pink latex cap with an image of a smiling, scarf-wrapped Memphre, the lake monster said to inhabit this 31-mile glacial lake that runs from Quebec county in Canada into Vermont
My Dry Robe® parka
My Deakin & Blue X-back swimsuit with the zoo animals liberty print
Mack’s silicone earplugs
AqtivAqua goggles
A big smile.
I smile because everyone else is smiling and it is infectious.
I smile because I am telling my nervous system (who is doubtful) that we will be OK.
I smile because I am happy to choose discomfort to have this unique experience.
I smile because I am among friends, even if I don't know their names yet.
I smile because life is a gift and I want to grab it with both hands.
It’s our turn! We walk outside, across the Eastside’s deck, down a metal ramp and onto the ice. Chris, my husband and swim roadie, walks with me as I plod in my Yaktrax-covered sunny yellow Crocs. The mushy lake ice of yesterday has frozen solid this morning and all the cracks that were slippery and loud have gone silent and hard.
Escorts & Strippers
I approach my side of the lake. Wooden handrails create a chute that leads to a ladder of steps down to a submerged wooden platform where I will be able to stand. I shove my gloves in my pockets and put on my goggles and watch Elliot across the pool at his ladder. When he takes off his robe and begins descending, I do the same, handing it to my “stripper,” who grabs it and my Crocs and throws them into a laundry basket. I notice there are icicles hanging from the railings as I hold on and carefully step backwards down into the water.
My feet and legs are instantly numb, which feels good. I reach into the water and splash some up into my armpits and onto my face to give my body a heads up of what’s coming. My fingers are already on fire. I remind myself to exhale on entry as the cold shock makes us mammals reflexively want to hold our breath.
The next thing I know it is whistle and GO! I kneel down and push off the platform and start swimming freestyle. Not my normal horizontal glide, but a sort of water-polo-high-head-overhand-fuck-fuck-fuck paddle wheel. My face is submerged to the base of my nose, which makes my body confused as to how and when to breathe. Normally, I would exhale into the water through my nose, resting my head to balance my body so my legs don’t drag. Here I am just swimming like hell. At about the three-quarter mark I feel like I am slowing down. It is milliseconds but inside my body, followed by my mind, I am suddenly moving through molasses. Each movement of my head, arms, legs, and torso feels exaggerated and needs a formal will behind it. There is a dreamy, let’s-stop-and-relax message coming from my brain. That’s interesting. I know this message should not be followed. In another few strokes, I am at the finish platform on the other side of the pool. I made it!
My time: 28.50 seconds.
Recovery
I can’t feel the wood as I grasp the railing and climb out of the water and now I understand why at the swim briefing they said to be extra careful on entry and exit because you won’t feel any scrapes and cuts. Chris is there with my stripper, who places my Crocs for me to step into. I feel frozen externally, a layer of gelid adipose tissue topped with a still-warm head, but not cold in my core like I have experienced swimming for much longer in San Francisco Bay.
I barely register the cheers and cowbells as my brain is focused on navigating my exit, when it hits me—I just completed my first official ice swim! Yay me! I could do it. And then a tiny part of me is already thinking … that was over so fast. I bet if I trained a little more in very cold water I could do the 50-meter (across the pool and back) next year. Hmmm, I wonder…
My “stripper” guides my arms into my swim parka and zips me up. “You’re an amazing mad woman, my love,” Chris says as he escorts me back across the ice, up the ramp, and into the warming hut.
In water, I continue to find more layers of myself as I age. The more time I spend in it, the more I find I transcend aging—or just don’t give a shit.
The warming hut is not a hut, or a sauna, but rather a small heated outbuilding of the Eastside restaurant. Last year, Suzie optimized the flow for the “huggers” to get swimmers safely warmed and in and out of the building as smoothly as possible.
It’s a big white room with a semicircle of about 10 folding chairs, a microwave, a bunch of buckets, and tube-socks filled with rice. In the back there is a bathroom with a shower stall and a toilet. There are bags of gear, parkas, wet shoes, and semi-naked and naked bodies everywhere. It smells like warm wet towels sprinkled with adrenalin. Most of these swimmers are used to stripping and warming up on the beach after a cold swim so this warm room out of the wind is a luxury. I register how spoiled I am by the Dolphin Club’s locker room, ample hot shower, and blissful sauna, but I have learned how to warm up without it and am prepared.
The “huggers” cheer for each swimmer who comes through the door and dotes on each of us. I put a hat on top of my swim cap to keep my head warm, strip off my wet suit, dry and wrap myself in my towel and parka, and sit down in a chair. Immediately, a hugger brings me a bucket of warm water to set my feet in and places a just-microwaved, weighted tube sock around my neck. My hands hurt really, really bad for about five minutes, but the rest of my body recovers pretty quickly. Once my fingers can manage a zipper again, I free up a chair and get dressed. No underwear, no bra, easy pull-on pants, and layers: t-shirt, cashmere turtleneck, down vest, parka, scarf, gloves, wool socks, and wool-lined Uggs. Nice and cozy. And now, I’m hungry!
Why I Choose Hard Things
Back in the Eastside, ecstatic swimmers, some with kids, parents, or partners in tow, crowd the tables, eating, drinking, and talking to each other about swims, swim gear, swim events, their IRL work, and random friends we find we have in common. I made some new friends and caught up with some old, including Juliet Kadlecek, the winner of the female 200-meter freestyle, who welcomed me to her CIBBOWS winter swimming pod in Coney Island a couple Februarys ago for my first taste of wild ice swimming. No matter who I talk to, there is a feeling that we are all family, part of one tribe, and we have something in common–this love of choosing hard, fun things.
When I asked other swimmers why they think they’ve gravitated to this sport, they responded with common themes: being in nature; seeing what their bodies and minds can do; and honoring the hard things that have happened in their lives. There are many survivors of cancer, illness, and trauma, as well as those who have persevered through great personal hardship and loss. Every single person says: the people. The community. This! With a wave around the room to the smiling faces that have traveled from around the country (and world) to test themselves for a few, or a few hundred, seconds, in the ice. This event is not just a swim meet, it is a society, a social gathering of people who bond over their love of the cold water, who, as organizer Phil White says, “take their swimming seriously but not themselves.”
When I first signed up I thought, well, I want to try it and if I hate it, I won’t have to do it again. Instead, I am already planning what events I want to try for next year. And Elaine is thinking on a new hat.
Her incredibly-fabulous Golden Gate Bridge group hat entry got second place, trumped by a pair of Memphre lake monsters. The hat competition is agreed to be the very most competitive event of the festival.
Cold water is a great equalizer of age, ability, and gender. The ice swimmers' ages ranged from 16 to 70+ (read this WOWSA report for all the results).
In water, I continue to find more layers of myself as I age. The more time I spend in it, the more I find I transcend aging—or just don’t give a shit.
I’ll conclude with some of Phil’s parting (and abbreviated) words:
“Winter Swimmers,
Attached are the Preliminary Times. If you spot any errors or revisions that need to be made, please let me know. This is a system run by hand, built on the joy of the swim. So, there will be errors.Your $10 ribbons raised $960 for the Halo Foundation, NEK. Special thanks. …
For the meantime, I'll leave you with the words of Charles Bukowski, author of Notes of a Dirty Old Man, written in the early 60s.
"We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
Think about it. You could try ice swimming too! Or be a volunteer to watch the madness. We can all do so much more than we think we can—and have fun doing it.
wow! This is so incredible! BRAVO!!!! The writing and the event! And yes to hard things.... and you were in my backyard! I KNOW that lake and how CCCCCCCOLD it is. I'll have to come check it out next year... spectating definitely not in the water.....
Wow just WOW, we will have to talk after the end of May. I'll have a lot to mind/body process and swimming is where much of it will happen.