People brave icy waters in New Year's Polar Plunge
Megan Strickland
Josiah Edington barrels into the icy cold water to start off a new year with friends Laura Bahrs and Monica Cleveland. Nearby Taylor and Lauren Colligne hold the hand of Gary Collinge as they race into the water.
Megan Strickland
Right at 1 p.m. on Jan. 1, a group of teens head in feet first.
Megan Strickland
Gary Collinge yells in victory after completing the polar plunge.
Megan Strickland
Gary Collinge yells in victory after completing the polar plunge.
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Josiah Edington barrels into the icy cold water to start off a new year with friends Laura Bahrs and Monica Cleveland. Nearby Taylor and Lauren Colligne hold the hand of Gary Collinge as they race into the water.
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Lauren Collinge shivers while waiting at Riverside Park for the clock to strike 1 p.m. so she can charge into Flathead Lake.
Megan Strickland
Lauren Collinge shivers while waiting at Riverside Park for the clock to strike 1 p.m. so she can charge into Flathead Lake.
Megan Strickland
Monica Cleveland emerges from the polar plunge with a soaked beard and cape.
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Like lemmings barreling off a cliff into the great unknown, dozens of people decided to face the start of another year’s uncertainty together, by charging from the shoreline of Riverside Park, into the icy 39-degree waters of Flathead Lake, in the annual Polar Plunge on Jan. 1.
“It felt like a bunch of knives hitting you,” said Tara Irvine, of Pablo, who made her first winter foray into chilly waters with 12 or 13 friends, at noon, an hour before the main group went in at 1 p.m. “I heard last year it was colder so I feel like a wuss doing it this year.”
Tara said the event was a great way “to wash away 2013 and bring on 2014 with a cold plunge.”
She plans to participate again next year and bring more friends with her.
For 17-year-old Monica Cleveland a dip in the icy waters on Jan. 1 is a ritual, according to her mother Terri Cleveland.
“She’s been doing it every year,” Terri said. “She loves it. It’s her seventh year. Every year she tries to get her friends to go with her (again), but they only do it once (and) then they are done.”
Terri Cleveland joked that this year only Monica’s boyfriend, Josiah Edington, and foreign exchange student Laura Bahrs were willing to tag along. Monica donned a superman cape and fake moustache and beard in her plunge. Josiah and Laura wore beards that struggled after surfacing to cling to their skin coated in goose bumps and frigid water. The trio grinned through chattering teeth as they emerged.
Nearby, Alison and Bill Hawley dripped their way back to shore. The couple made their first plunge together and Bill had a plan of how to get warm after going into the water.
“What I thought we’d do is jump in, jump out,” Bill said. “Towel off. Put my sweats back on without any of the wet stuff. There you go.”
A co-worker of Alison’s invited the couple, but Bill said he wasn’t driven to take a frosty dive into the lake when he first heard about it.
“(I said) I think you people are nuts and then I have to (do it) because my wife is nuts,” Bill said. As he prepared to go in he felt kind of silly. His entrance plan was not nearly as sophisticated as his exit plan.
“I think my technique is going to be get in, get the h—- out,” Bill said.
The original Polson Plungers, Dave and Connie Bull, were there to quell the fears of newbies.
“You can’t hesitate,” Bull said. “You’ve got to just go for it … By the time it hits your thigh you really want to quit, but that’s when you just go for it (and go under).”
In 1999, the Bulls and their children, Preston, Sarah, Colter, and Tanna decided to take the first polar plunge together. The next year the children decided to plunge every month into Flathead Lake to raise money for charity, and send three campers to Camp Mak-A-Dream. The event became more organized, with t-shirts being given to those that make the “official plunge” by dunking their head under water. Eventually, the plunge made its way back to being an unofficial event, as the Bull children grew up and moved away.
Dave and Connie are there each year.
“We just kind of kept it going,” Dave said. “Every year we say that it’s probably the last one, but it’s so much fun, it’s so exhilarating. We just have a ball with it …The whole point is to have fun. Every sense is tingling.”
