Why ice swimming is so hot right now

It’s not easy to get changed outside for a swim in a Scottish loch. Especially when it’s January, the air temperature is hovering around -1C and you are trying to preserve some shred of modesty among the strangers who surround you.

This bare-cheeked frozen misery marked the start of one of the best weekends of my life.

I had signed up for taking my clothes off in freezing locations after a “Cairngorms Winter Swimming Retreat” came into my Instagram feed. It’s run by SwimWild, one of the UK-based guided swimming companies that I follow on social media for “swimspo”. At the time it was high summer — 30C in London, and I was in very low spirits. I booked immediately, because nothing says “optimism” like planning to throw yourself into water that is so cold it could kill you.

Months later, I stood ready to do just that, on a wind-whipped beach with 11 fellow swimmers, our dip timed to coincide with the sunset behind Loch Morlich in the Scottish Highlands. The water temperature was a touch over two degrees, but I’ve been acclimatised to year-round swimming for years and (strange to say) when it’s this cold I barely feel anything on entering the water. Five hundred miles from the constant anxiety baked into my London life, I waded into the loch without hesitation.

Once in, there was only a sense of calm, and the privilege of not just looking at these extraordinary landscapes, but of actually being a part of them. More prosaically, all cares melt away because you are just too cold to think. I call it the gift of healthy oblivion.

After three or four minutes, it was over. An experienced swimmer can tell when it’s time to get out. For me, this often feels like a delicious warm rush of euphoria, starting in the chest and spreading outwards. It’s a proper high. In Loch Morlich, though, I felt the cold as a crushing feeling in my chest. If I stayed in too long, I’d struggle to breathe. I didn’t stay in too long.

I am very aware that outdoor swimming is becoming the hobby that it’s OK to hate. After too many “wild swimming” articles, far too many Instagram posts, there’s now a lively backlash in the press. Swimmers in DryRobes look like unattractive saggy penguins, it seems, or we might even die from a newly publicised pulmonary condition.

It’s true: we really don’t care what we look like. And yes, we all know this hobby carries risks, especially in winter. The simple truth is that we swim because it makes us feel amazing, inside and out. Nothing else matters. Submersion in water under 12C gives you a proper buzz on. (Not a technical term, but an accurate one.)

Truly extreme winter swims, though, are different again. And this is far less written about. The fashionable new swim-frontier — and what lured me to Scotland in January — is ice swimming. It’s a term that, according to the International Ice Swimming Association, covers any water sub 5C (41F). Actual ice is not needed — it’s just a bonus feature.

And don’t get actual ice swimming confused with those who immerse their bodies, rather than going for a real dip. My Instagram feed is full of examples of the former, including not-quite Wim Hof courses, pricey inflatable pools and recycled barrels for all your back garden immersion needs.

Alice Goodridge, the founder of SwimWild, is at the heart of the UK’s ice swimming community. Now based in the Highlands, she grew up on the south coast of England and swam competitively as a child before swapping to endurance events. She completed a solo crossing of the English Channel in just under 14 hours in 2012, wearing a swimsuit, or “skins”, rather than a wetsuit. In 2018 she swam the Ice Mile, which is the new international cold-water benchmark: a mile in water of 5C or less, in just a swimming costume, hat and goggles. She is, in other words, extraordinary.

Even Goodridge says that the Ice Mile is “probably one of the most extreme things I have ever put my body through”. It requires months of training. She leads her winter retreats with Becca Harvey, another Ice Miler, and both women have strings of open-water coaching and life-saving qualifications. I felt very safe swimming with them, with back-up from Alice’s husband Alastair, who drives the bus and brings all the equipment: hot drinks for post-swim warming up, floats, first aid, hot water bottles.

Every swim lasts a few minutes in the water but takes hours of preparation, travel and recovery. Getting changed straight after swimming is a particular challenge, as quickly-freezing hands fumble with clothing. The trick is to layer up on top as quickly as possible, forgetting anything on your bottom half — the core of your body around the heart needs to warm up first. Dignity is not included.

My favourite of the four Cairngorms lochs we visited over the course of three days was Loch An Eilein, in the middle of Rothiemurchus forest. It’s an idyllic place, with a ruined castle on an island in the centre of the lake. Our mainly middle-aged group swam out to the castle and back — my longest swim at seven or so minutes, and the coldest at 1.8C. There was a lot of shrieking — a truly bone-tingling experience. I have never felt better in my life.

Afterwards, Alastair walked a few of us to the top of a nearby hill to warm up and look down on the loch — he’s a wilderness guide and pointed out the wizened-looking juniper trees growing wild here. Their berries go straight into the local gin made by Walter Micklethwait, our host at Inshriach House, just outside Aviemore.

Goodridge’s SwimWild retreats are always based at Inshriach, an Edwardian shooting lodge at the heart of a large estate that runs down to the River Spey — where we also swam, in conditions that Goodridge described as “spicy”. We barely dipped here, treating the shallows like a plunge pool, then we all steamed in the estate’s ingenious sauna made from a horse box, and a hot tub built on the back of a trailer.

Inshriach House itself is a place you’d dream about renting for a big group of family or friends — and you can do just that, as it’s on Airbnb. It has an eclectic charm, boho rather than formal, with family portraits, comfy sofas and open fires, as well as the more predictable mounted antlers and hunting prints. None of the rooms are en suite and some of the fixtures, including lavatories, are original. But the plumbing, heating and plentiful hot water are all 21st-century — vital when big groups come back from a freezing swim and want a bath to take the edge off numb feet.

My single room overlooked gardens where red squirrels roam, although obviously not when I was looking. It had a strong “boarding school in 1950” vibe, with iron bedstead and quilted eiderdown, and shared a white-tiled bathroom with two other rooms. I loved the austerity of it all, though not the floorboard-creaking creep to the lavatory at 3am.

When we returned ravenous from our swims, the resident cooks always laid on pots of tea, as well as cakes and biscuits fresh from the oven. All were waiting for us in the impressive hall, where the entire group sat at the long table and shared swimming stories from the day — and beyond. I really enjoyed this informality, and it is one of Goodridge’s favourite parts of any trip: “I love the mixture of people we get on retreats — some couples, some pairs or trios of friends and some solo travellers.

“Everyone has one thing in common: a love of cold water. Even those who come with less experience than others get swept away with the enthusiasm of the group and end up doing much more than they thought they would at the beginning.”

Joining a group is also a safer way to try ice swimming. While there was no fresh snowfall over the weekend we spent there, the snow was thick on the top of the peaks, the roads our minibus travelled on were icy — and the air temperature never went above freezing. And, as Goodridge points out, safety matters: “It is really important never to dip alone in really cold water.”

The ice-swimming community is growing every year — there are timed race events such as Phish at Parliament Hill Lido in London, or the Scottish Winter Swimming Championships, now a three-day event at Taymouth Marina, and organised by Goodridge. This year she logged 800 competitors, making it the UK’s biggest ice-swimming event. “Some events were full within 20 minutes of going live.”

Despite the rapid growth of the sector, few people work full-time in the winter swimming world — and they all know each other. It turned out that even I knew a swimming celebrity: Suzanna Cruickshank, known as SuzannaSwims, who guided me round Crummock Water five years ago. Since then she’s written a bestselling book about swimming in the Lake District. Meanwhile, Goodridge, who has improbable amounts of energy, has a book coming out soon about outdoor swimming in Scotland. And Harvey is the subject of a documentary about her Ice Mile training, now showing at film festivals.

At the dinner table, we ice veterans talked about what comes next in terms of swimming trends. According to Goodridge and Harvey, the next big thing, and you read it here first, will be tours and books focused on hidden hilltop tarns, lakes and pools around the UK. Our lakes and rivers are now crowded — and often polluted. Those who want purity and solitude are climbing hills and mountains in search of remote, far more challenging dips. As an extra bonus, these high-altitude swims are absolutely bloody freezing, even in summer.

I cannot wait to jump in.

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