Long-awaited freeze gives ice divers a chance at certification
RYE, Colo. — Spirits were high the morning of Jan. 17 at Lake Isabel.
Overnight, Colorado had one of its first — historically delayed — cold snaps of the 2025-2026 winter season, freezing the southern part of the lake. In the frigid morning air, the lake, nestled in the mountains south of Pueblo, sat mostly undisturbed, aside from two men ice fishing on the western part of the lake and the excited chatter of the eight divers hauling their 50-pound rigs down towards the ice.
Diver David Moravek walked with confidence across the lake, asking the ice fisherman how thick the ice was. They shouted back. Moravek turned towards the group.
“Six inches — we’re looking at six inches today, so it’s pretty good,” Moravek said with a smile.
For the last two years, four ice-diving students in Colorado awaited a chance to get ice-certified. Because of logistical delays in obtaining the necessary permits, weather uncertainty and a warmer Colorado winter, the group has been unsuccessful in the certification process — that is, until this particular Saturday morning in January.
Three days earlier, the lake had no ice, so Movarek and the rest of his crew were pleasantly surprised when they saw the frozen water.
“When we came out here today, we had a low of ten degrees, and lo and behold, we got some good ice that we could actually stand on,” Moravek said.
An advanced open-water instructor, Moravek teaches at Diventures, a scuba-diving school in Colorado Springs. He’s been ice diving since 2021. Moravek was at Lake Isabel to earn his ice-diving certification as an instructor. Even though Moravek is a diving instructor and is certified to do other types of dives like open-water diving and cave diving, there are specializations that he must obtain before being certified to teach ice diving.
Because of Colorado’s uncharacteristically warm winter, temperatures hadn’t dropped low enough to freeze the lakes, keeping the Diventures group from diving into open water.
“Man, these past winters are becoming much warmer, and it’s harder [to dive] because we do have cold days, but we need a series of them — a week or two — to build some good ice,” Moravek said.
With the weather finally working in their favor, the certification-hopefuls could make their first ice dives in an outdoor setting. The group included members from the Pueblo County Sheriff’s dive team who attended the certification.
While many people ice dive recreationally, the certification process is essential for scientific research and rescue workers. In Colorado, ice rescues are frequent, with two occurring in the last week of January alone.
“There are a lot of bodies of water in Pueblo County. Being a part of the dive time is a chance for us to provide assistance to anyone that might go under on the bodies of water here in Pueblo County,” said Joe LoBiondo, a volunteer with the Pueblo County Sheriff’s dive team. LoBiondo works as the fire battalion chief of the Arkansas River Region and has five years of open water diving under his belt.
For almost a year and a half, LoBiondo, along with others in the class, had to complete classroom and pool sessions to learn about gear, skills and safety procedures before participating in what Diventures calls an open water training dive, like the one at Lake Isabel.
“Knowing how to ice dive is super important. If someone doesn’t know the rules and how to do it safely, it can become very dangerous,” Moravek said.
He said ice diving is in an “overhead environment,” referring to the thick ice that prevents people from surfacing, compared to open water diving. The only way to surface is through the ice hole created prior to the dive.
The group made a triangle-shaped hole so that the divers could utilize the corners for leverage to get in and out of the water.
They dove in groups of three. Two student divers trailed an instructor as they plunged into the 35-degree water. Student divers took positions as either the lead or secondary diver, while the instructor acted as the rescue diver. A rope attached all three divers to someone on the ice known as a surface line tender.
The divers learned signals to communicate with the surface line tender above by pulling on the rope in different patterns, signaling if they need to be pulled out and if they’re okay.
Because the ice had recently frozen over, the sediment in the lake hadn’t had a chance to sink to the bottom floor, so the divers submerged in almost complete darkness. In these instances, having someone on the surface tending to the line becomes more important to guide divers back to the surface.
“It was crazy [down there], a little scary, honestly. When you’re close to the surface, a little light is coming through so you can see the body next to you but you can’t see any further than that. Once you get deeper and deeper, it gets darker and murkier,” said student diver Brooke Near.
Near was the only diver out on Lake Isabel getting her certification for recreational purposes. Her goal is to one day dive with orcas in Norway.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of years. We’ve been trying to ice dive and it hasn’t worked out, and finally all the pieces came together,” Near said, bundled in a scarf and hat as she sat in a red Eskimo tent, warming up from her dive.
A little past noon, the group wrapped up and headed home, everyone obtaining their respective certifications.
“A lot of people think I’m crazy and ask why I do this . . . it’s a great question,” Near said. “Scuba diving and this underwater world allow people a chance to have such a unique experience.”
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