June 2nd - Decided to swim Wasilla Lake today even though it isn't a stocked lake. Mogan wasn't available so I enlisted one of my fellow teachers (John)from Mat-Su Career & Tech High School to follow me in the boat. It was the perfect day to swim one of the longest lakes that I would have to swim. Tempertures in the high 60's and no wind. Water temperature was 64 F. Wasilla Lake is located off the Parks Highway in down town Wasilla. Wasilla Lake is made up of two lake and upper and lower with a small canel connecting the too lakes. In the middle of canel it can't be more than 4 feet deep. The public access is locted by the swimming beach on the side of lake near Pizza Hut. Float planes have been known to land here and the pilot would walk up to get a pizza. While swimming across the lower lake had the opportunity to watch several seagulls and loons swim or fly by. Actually only could watch them when I took a breath. Lake seemed to be pretty clean only few weeds in the canal. Of course John was trying to video tape me swimming through the canel but ran the trolling motor into to shallow of water and had to stop and clean the blades thus the video didn't happen. The first half of the upper lake was clean of weeds but the second half is much shallow (4-6 foot deep) and hence as we got closer to shore the more weeds i had to swim through. Total time 53 minutes and according to the GPS it was just of 2 miles as the crow flies. But if you have ever swam in open water you know that you don't swim straight. Thus, I would estimate my total swim distance more like 2.25 miles. Once across now it was time to enjoy the boat ride back across the lake. Unfortunately the battery was dieing and John decided to oar and it took us 70 mintues to get back to the truck. In future swims that John goes with me on we will bring a 2 hp motor so that we can get bck across the lake quicker. Overall good experience.
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