An icy Colorado tradition usually celebrates the beginning of the New Year, but an unseasonably warm winter delayed the Evergreen Lake Plunge until Sunday.
Brave jumpers leaped into Evergreen Lake on March 1, or meteorological spring, as the delayed Evergreen Lake Plunge took place.
The plunge was rescheduled from its traditional New Year’s Day event due to a lack of ice. Despite the delay, around 100 jumpers still came out on the new date, hoping the ice would be thick enough during an unusually warm winter. It wasn’t.
Participants typically gather on the lake and jump through a hole cut in ice that is ten or more inches deep, but this winter’s warm temperatures have caused only a fraction of the needed ice to form. The skating season on Evergreen Lake, usually scheduled to open around December 15th, didn’t open until well after the New Year. It remained open for only two weeks before warm weather ended the season, the lake’s shortest ever…