Last Swim at Whipple Dam

Swimming season is drawing down to a close, with most of the local swimming areas closed on Labor Day, and the last few remaining ones closing at the end of this coming weekend. With thunderstorms predicted for Thursday, and cooler temperatures arriving on Friday and predicted to linger through the coming week, it looked like Wednesday might be my last chance to go swimming.

So on Wednesday afternoon after work, we quickly packed up a few things and headed over to Whipple Dam, our favorite local swimming spot. As we started the swimming season there on Memorial Day (and swam there on another one of our major holidays, July 4th), it seemed a fitting place to end the swimming season as well.

A quick bit of history. The land around and including this lake was originally purchased from the Iroquois Confederation in 1754, and since then, charcoal was produced here, as well as iron ore, before the lake was turned into a sawmill operation. In the 1930s, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) boys built many of the park structures that we see today, like the brown picnic pavilion on the left. (Those who are interested may learn more at the PA state DCNR Web site and Wikipedia.)

I walked along the shoreline with my camera for a few minutes as soon as we got there, just in case the light wasn't so great later. I was looking for dragonflies but didn't see any; and I startled a couple of nice frogs along the shore. My husband walked over to the swimming area (the two brown buildings and the beach appear on the right) and immediately jumped in the water, waving and calling for me to join him.

So I hastened my step and jumped in, and found the water cool and clear and refreshing, as always. The last good rays of sun of the day lit the area with golden light. We were alone in the park; or at least mostly so: in the distance, I heard an owl hoot. A second owl, further away, answered back. And we swam and swam and swam. We swam like there was no tomorrow; we swam like summer would never end . . .

The song to accompany this photo of the location of my last swim of summer is a song by R.E.M. called Nightswimming. What we did was really early evening swimming, not quite night swimming, but I like the tune, so enjoy.