GAMBIER — “The water feels good after you get numb,” Kenyon senior Anna Laura Scandell said.
“Really refreshing,” agreed junior Kate Hamilton, who added that at her home in Indiana, swimming in the river is nothing new.
The two students were commenting on their experience in the Kenyon Outdoors Club Polar Bear Plunge into the Kokosing River. Freshman Sophie Traires, who lives close to the ocean in Maine, said swimming in cold water is nothing new.
About a dozen students took the plunge, which was held Sunday afternoon for the first time in about 10 years. The plunge was a Kenyon ritual in past years. In addition to the newly revived plunge, Scandell, who is president of the club, said the club has other activities. During spring break this year, she said, 25 students went backpacking in Utah. Other activities include hiking the Appalachian Trail and white water rafting.
The plunge was taken at the canoe access along Laymon Road, just off Ohio 229. Several students even went back in the waist deep river a second time, some of them to wash off the mud they smeared on themselves after the first plunge.
As to the water temperature, no one brought a thermometer to measure it. Fortunately, however, the water had receded from the recent rains to near-normal levels. There is, however, a swift current in the center of the river, which the students had to be concerned about.
