Ice Diving Classes – Training or Tourist Destination?

Each winter, I get many calls from people asking about my ice diving class. You would think that by the number of emails and phone calls, that my ice class would be full. Sadly, I only get one or two people each winter. There are a number of reasons why this is, 1) I’m too expensive, 2) our quarry is only open one weekend in the winter for ice diving, so schedules are limited, and 3) I only train ice divers who want to continue ice diving.

The Ice Diving Tourist

There are many people that I call ice tourists. Those are the people who take an ice diving course, just for the experience and will never do it again. There is nothing wrong with people who just want to try out ice diving. There are many examples of people doing this in other areas of diving. You’ve got cavern guided tours and discover scuba diving programs. But where those programs differ from the ice tourist is that those ice diving tourists get certified to conduct ice dives without supervision. When you go on a guided cavern dive or take a discover scuba diving course, you are not issued a c-card to continue diving in that environment.

Why take a class, and get a c-card, if you have no intentions of ever doing that type of diving again? Pay an ice diving instructor to take you on a guided ice dive or two just to say you’ve done it. Continued ice diving requires significant skill and control in the water that should be taught in a good ice diving course.

Ice Diving is Quasi Technical Diving

The only recreational classes that require students to go into a hard overhead environment are the cavern and ice diving courses. For this reason alone, those classes walk a fine line between recreational and technical diving. The ice diving class MUST NOT be treated as a standard recreational class. The extreme temperatures combined with the hard overhead make it an extreme dive and should not be taken lightly.

Ice diving classes, that I have witnessed, have become so loose, that it is no surprise why many people don’t pursue more ice diving. Since ice diving is pretty darn close to technical diving, the classes need to be treated as such. I can teach ice diving for PADI and SDI. Both do not require skills while under water. There are skills that need to be done for safe ice diving. For example, lost diver/line procedures (different from cave diving) and gas management (above “traditional” thirds). This past winter, I saw ice diving classes being completed in only 6 hours. A six hour ice diving class!!! I can only imagine what was and wasn’t covered. Heck, my last ice class consisted of 6 hours worth of lecture alone, in addition to the dive time.

Ice Diving is Really Fun

Many people think we are crazy for wanting to go scuba diving under ice. But it gives us a chance to continue diving throughout the year and enjoy each other’s company. Ice diving can be a lot of fun. Training needs to be sound and ice diving skills must be practiced. Like I said previously, if you are only looking for an ice diving experience, then ask your local dive store or instructor if they will do that. If you really want to ice dive, and continue ice diving, then treat it like a technical diving class and research potential instructors. Go over their program and find out what you will do. Then compare that with the standards. This will help you find the best ice diving program for you. Don’t fall for the cheaper/faster programs.



Photo Credit: Duane Johnson and Bill Lamping