Open water swimming is such a beautiful sport. Free of lane lines, black lines and walls. It is a sport with many variables and destinations. When I swim in open water I feel as if it is a hike through water. Often swimming in beautiful rural open spaces with majestic scenery. It is a space of solitude and rejuvenation which allows me to balance my thoughts while attaining internal peace. 

When I was a young age group swimmer I often imagined going on long swims instead of walking, running, biking or even riding in a car. I never really thought open water swimming was a reality. I would turn sidewalks into swim lanes and think about how it would feel to swim as a means of travel. I could always equate swimming to flying and flying through water is my happy place. 

My imaginary world of traveling through water is now reality by means of open water swimming. It is a gorgeous state of being with so many paths. Training, challenging and competing in open water swimming has been a dream of mine even before I knew it existed. 

For the last 12 years I have lived in Redding California and for the last 12 years I have fallen in love with the sport of open water. I swim in a lake about 8 miles west of town called Whiskeytown Lake. It is a beautiful lake that has so many wonderful swimming paths with beautiful shoreline scenery. 

It is my dream along with my open water swimming friend Kathleen Cowling, a water expert in so many ways, to bring long distance swimming events, swim camps and ultra marathon challenges to the far Northern State of California centered around Redding by means of Whiskeytown Lake, Shasta Lake and Lake Siskiyou. We would also like to share the many mountain lakes by guided day hike swims and quite possibly backpacking overnight swims. We believe that our area is a beautiful untapped resource of swim journeys and we want to share it with the open water swim community.