Anyone Ever Dive the Tenino Rock Quarry Pool?

[trent]

I took my little boy swimming at the rock quarry, now turned Swimming Pool in Tenino this weekend. After talking with some of the lifeguard staff, I learned that parts are around 100 feet deep and there is a bunch of machinery down there. Has anyone ever dove here and checked it out?

I was thinking about trying to get a dive approved there, but was wondering how likely it would be.

Thanks
- Trent

[Maverick]

i'm in, what's your certification level trent?

[trent]

NAUI Advanced, with Wreck and Search & Recovery from PADI.

I'm going to attempt to contact the city of Tenino and see if they will approve a dive there. I have no idea what I am in for with them, but I'll soon see.

- Trent

[Dusty2]

Sounds very interesting. Bet there is a ton of old swim gear down there and the vis should be good. Keep us posted

[Pez7378]

This DOES sound interesting. Keep us posted on your progress with the city Trent. I'm not sure what those folks in the midwest see in diving Rock Quarrys but I'd sure like to find out.

BTW, Where the hell is Tenino anyway?

[trent]

Tenino is near Olympia. I guess I am trying to fill my cave diving void. I just moved here from Florida, and it was a short drive to dive some good springs down to 130 feet with unlimited vis.

Hopefully they will let me do it. If I get approved, I will see how many people they will OK and I'll let you know.

- Trent

[billandwende]

The city is looking to expand the park. Perhaps this may be a good time to get approved for a dive. This way the park may end up as a dive destination. OK its a spin but may get ya in.

Let me know if you need a partner for this. I live in Oly and would be interested in doing a dive there.

[Maverick]

this may be the Maverick in me, but why do we need permission to go diving. lets just dive. I was unsure about beer on the beach this last weekend. when I asked Val this was her response

Last time i check "It's easier to say sorry than it is to ask permission" Zen Diver2 :occasion5:


I say we dive, lets just meet there on a saturday say not this coming saturday but next and get wet. might be fun, might turn into a lunch at the local pub. But at least we can meet and greet for some BSing about diving.

[trent]

It is fenced in, city property. You would probably be looking at some legal action if you just went in and dove it...

Have fun with that Maverick, my career won't sustain that.
- Trent

[Dusty2]

Yes and those tenino city council folk have no since of humor :naka:

[Zen Diver]

this may be the Maverick in me, but why do we need permission to go diving. lets just dive. I was unsure about beer on the beach this last weekend. when I asked Val this was her response

Last time i check "It's easier to say sorry than it is to ask permission" Zen Diver2 :occasion5:

Actually, I think it was Wylerbear who said it, wasn't it? Or maybe we both did.... heck, I've just done a 12 hour day at work, what do I know?

[Maverick]

Valerie I stand Corrected, it was wylerbear and you laughed and agreed. sorry about that. Good quote though

[BASSMAN]

Why not do it on a Thursday?
I'm extremly interested in doing this too! Keep me posted.

Actually a Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday or Friday would work for me, depending on what time of the day.

[Dusty2]

Why not do it on a Thursday?
I'm extremly interested in doing this too! Keep me posted.

Actually a Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday or Friday would work for me, depending on what time of the day.

Me too, Me too!

[Maverick]

Weekends are the end of the week people. Dive plans are for the end of the week, Dive are for after work.. the Quarry is a dive plan, thus it is for a weekend. Bassman you work weekends? Canyou get one off to join us? I can dive that far away during the week, I hope this is done on a weekend

[BASSMAN]

Weekends are the end of the week people. Dive plans are for the end of the week, Dive are for after work.. the Quarry is a dive plan, thus it is for a weekend. Bassman you work weekends? Canyou get one off to join us? I can dive that far away during the week, I hope this is done on a weekend

Aw c'mon! Friday mornings are almost the weekend

You guys set it up and I'll, {"Cough, Cough "} see what I can do!

[trent]

No dice! Talked with Tenino City Hall today and they had no desire to let ANYONE dive there. They said people have asked this many times in the past, and they are not going to give anyone a permit to dive in the quarry.

- Trent

[Pez7378]

Sayang! Oh well. Thanks for asking Trent!

[raptor]

So I started looking at this post and it is very interesting. So has anyone gone to this site for a dive? Well if you do I would like to know it sound like a lot of fun.

Raptor

[cardiver]

No dice! Talked with Tenino City Hall today and they had no desire to let ANYONE dive there. They said people have asked this many times in the past, and they are not going to give anyone a permit to dive in the quarry.

- Trent

SEE ABOVE.....

[Waynne Fowler]

A couple of us got permission to dive this site on Monday Jan 3rd 2011.
It was arranged through the Tenino PD. I'm not exactly sure what the process was as the arrangement was taken care of by someone else. We were met at the site by a local LEO who provided us with waivers to sign then unlocked the gate to allow us entry. After we got the locks unfrozen we went to have a look at the quarry. It's about 120-150 feet long, 40-50 feet wide and supposedly about 85 feet deep. The water was frozen over when we arrived.
One of the divers who is a PSD for one of the local county's gave us a bit of a rundown on what he was able to find out. Which was far more than any of the rest of us knew. He informed us that the location has not had many divers in it and none are publically documented. All the dives he knew of were dives by LE to recover evidence. They suspect there's a ton of stolen property down there and potentially at least one body. Needless to say any treasure found would have to be turned over to LLE before being released into the finder’s hands. He confirmed that there was indeed at least one crane, some old cars a few misc. pieces of equipment and a whole lot of garbage about the bottom. One other interesting tidbit… he related a story of a PSD diver who while descending down one of the sides became pinned between the side and a discarded chain-link fence.
Six divers suited up and made our plan. The water was very black looking though from the surface we could see about 3ish feet down to a small ledge that protrudes from around the entire diving platform.
Our plan was to drop down to 20 feet in two groups of 3 for 5 min's to do some recon and let everyone get a taste of what to expect for viz. We didn't hold out much hope for the viz, in that while sitting on the surface with our lights shining on our fins they were not too easily seen. We figured this water was gonna be B L A C K, and we were not disappointed in that regard.
As we descended down one of the western most wall's it quickly became evident that viz was going to be ZERO at about 20ish feet virtually all ambient light disappeared and those of us who were using low intensity lights were left in almost complete darkness as their lights barely shone more than 2 feet.
On this first drop one of our divers had a second stage freeze up and free flow on him. One other diver decided the viz was too poor for the light system he had and called it. We regrouped into 2 teams of 2 divers and descended a second time.
Oh yeah, did I tell ya that the quarry has a forest growing on the wall just above it with all sorts of Maple and Alder growing up there, and all those leaves have dumped into the quarry over the last 80+ years so even the slightest of motion caused the sides and bottom (though we’d not seen the bottom) to explode in a massive silt cloud. I’ve not seen anything so delicate… including the fine clay silt of some of the Mexican caves. I was facing one of the walls and back kicked (now I ain’t got no crazy powerful back kick either) and after a second or two the wall in front of me silted up from the wash… my first thought was ‘SWEET! I got a badazz back kick!!!’ followed quickly by a ‘Damnitalltohell that's some thick silt!’
As we dropped down we were facing one of the NW wall’s. They seem to have built this area up on the graduated cut out’s they did to excavate the sandstone. You know, it looked just like the mining pictures you see where they hack blocks out in a stair stepping fashion getting ever wider as you move up the mines walls. On the 3rd shelf down I found an old Double Cola bottle in pristine condition. I showed it to Phil (My assigned buddy) and then dropped it into the black just to see how long I could keep it in sight…. Not long at all.
We continued to drop with Phil about a foot below and to my left and the other team above and further to the left (south of me). We reached a ledge (or so we think) at about 54 feet and began to move north, the ledge led us to the Northern most wall of the primary swimming area which moved us to an Easterly heading… as we moved down that edge Phil was on my left moving along very slowly making sure there were no obstructions ahead… it was rather creepy in that clumps of leave’s where just floating up in mid water and as your light caught them they looked like a wall.
About 2 min’s down this wall I noticed bubbles coming up from below (who the hecks down there I thought) as a head came into my light beam and I realized it was Tyson who was on the other team??? How’d that happen? Just then the wall in front of us seemed to explode with silt. Tyson comes between Phil and I just as we are overcame by the silt cloud I look up and West to find Tyson’s buddy motioning for Ty to move up and back with him then I see Phil’s fins disappear into the cloud and …….. everything went BLACK, very black. I get a hold of Tyson and move around him to see if I can grab Phil in the cloud… no dice.. Ty thumbs and we move up above the cloud to find his buddy and mine. Ty’s buddy is there mine is not… we wait for about a minute and then begin our ascent.
When we make it to the surface about 2-3 minutes later Phil’s on the side of the pool with a helper getting out of his kit. Dave, Tyson and I make our way over… of course this is made more fun by having to bust thru the Ice… which none of us really noticed when we broke the surface as it was only about ½ thick and easily moved around. Getting out is way more difficult than getting in. The sides are slick and steep, and the ladders are partially frozen.

We’ll be doing it again, but considerably different next time. Some things I’d change next time would be:
1] Big lights all around
2] No more than 2 in a team
3] Put a down line in the middle and work a reel along the bottom (providing we find the bottom)
4] No more than 2 teams in the water at once as it is just too small for more IMO.
5] Make sure everyone understands the importance of good trim and anti-silting techniques as one misplaced fin kick may end the dive for multiple teams.
6] Shore support. As getting out without assistance would have been a real drag.

[Pez7378]

We’ll be doing it again, but considerably different next time. Some things I’d change next time would be:
1] Big lights all around
2] No more than 2 in a team
3] Put a down line in the middle and work a reel along the bottom (providing we find the bottom)
4] No more than 2 teams in the water at once as it is just too small for more IMO.
5] Make sure everyone understands the importance of good trim and anti-silting techniques as one misplaced fin kick may end the dive for multiple teams.
6] Shore support. As getting out without assistance would have been a real drag.

I'm still interested! You know where to find me.

[Norris]

Sounds fun I would also be game!

[whatevah]

Excellent adventure - thanks for the write-up. That silt can be really strange - almost like it's still in suspension. SAR dives are often conducted almost entirely by "grope" - one lake I dove in had silt on the bottom so soft and deep that the only way I could tell that I'd accidentally transitioned from swimming in water to slithering head first into the silt was that the faint glow of my dive light directly in front of my face went away. Many objects (including bodies) disappear completely into the silt. It can be difficult to maintain neutral buoyancy in those conditions - one of the things I do is to pay very close attention to variance in the pressure I feel at my tympanic membranes - they're my low-tech gauge :p You can hold your depth gauge up against your mask to constantly monitor your depth but that becomes a hassle as you start wishing for a third/fourth/fifth hand. Anyway - enjoy your exploration and stay safe Be very careful with any lines that you introduce into the environment you'll be diving in. A PSD team would send one diver at a time with a line running back to a tender on the surface - the line is both for signals and so that a safety diver can quickly locate the first diver in the event of an emergency. The line could be held in the diver's hand but would ideally be attached to their harness via a quick release. Depending on the team's resources, surface-supplied breathing gas, full face masks and comms might also be employed. Anyway - just some considerations that you might consider when you're planning out your next trip to the quarry. I think it's awesome that you stuck with this idea and jumped through all the hoops to get access. I don't know if you've given it consideration already, but it might be worth checking what's in the water. Sometimes places like that have been used to dispose of some pretty nasty stuff.

[Dashrynn]

I'm interested