Time To Take The Plunge Low Temperatures Bring High Turnout To Annual Event At Lake Cda

It was a good day to be a beginner, observed first-time Polar Plunger Dave Arnold.

“The sun feels good,” he said, basking in the calm brightness beside Lake Coeur d’Alene. “This would be tough if it was 15 degrees.”

The air temperature was a balmy 34 degrees Fahrenheit, and the water temperature 38, as several hundred participants and spectators crowded Sanders Beach for the New Year’s Day ritual of running into the lake.

Most folks hadn’t a clue about how many years the plunge has been going on. But many agreed that the turnout was unsurpassed.

“It used to be there were about 15 people, and we all held hands and jumped in,” said Miller, who’s been coming from Spokane for eight years to attend the plunge. “Last year and this year were the biggest crowds we’ve had.”

Several people even plunged from small boats, which was a first according to Miller’s wife, Suzanne.

For five years, a gang of families from East Pine Hill Street have served as “official unofficial” timekeepers of the event.

“We don’t want anybody organizing this,” said Pine Hill plunger Larry Skogen. “There’s no rules, and we like it that way.”

Skogen wore a party hat, like the rest of his gang, and was headed for the water with his children Robby, Katie and Ryan. At 11:55 a.m., Skogen’s neighbor Kelly Minor consulted a red-rimmed Mickey Mouse clock and shouted: “Five more minutes!”

As the countdown switched from minutes to seconds, people shed bathrobes and parkas. Bare feet stepped out of big boots.

“I don’t know if I want to go in,” shivered 13-year-old Tally Gardiner. She was there with the three Tart sisters: Jamie, Joanie and Rachel, ages 8, 10 and 11.

Teacher Cindy Clutter, who had just finished the annual Hangover fun run, clutched her pink bathrobe and got ready to hit the water along with C.J. Hamilton. Both are master swimmers but had never done the polar plunge before.

Hamilton is 82.

“I just said to hell with it, I’m probably only going to live another 10 or 15 years,” he said. Clutter predicted with a laugh that Hamilton would swim as far as Arrow Point, which is a 15-minute boat ride away.

At the stroke of noon, there was a stampede for the water.

Five seconds later, most folks were stampeding in the opposite direction.

Only a half-dozen stalwarts lingered, swimming and floating on innertubes. Among them was Dwight Dansereau, who confessed to being both tough and crazy.

Eddie Keith and his son, Mike, went back in for some horseplay. They’ve been coming for five years.

Young Pat Beal decided to take the plunge with his dad this year after nearly being swept involuntarily into the water in 1995.

“It’s a shock to get the alcohol out of your system,” joked his dad, Doug Beal.

Everyone had a reason, if not a rational explanation, for their behavior.

Bill Cook is a Bureau of Land Management employee who’s been furloughed for two weeks by the federal budget impasse. “We’ve got to do something to keep ourselves amused.”

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