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DECEMBER 29, 2021�JANUARY 5, 2022
Start the new year with a cold swim at Wallowa Lake
Beth Gibans
Memorial Wallowa
Lake Polar Bear
Plunge is Jan. 1
POLAR BEAR
PLUNGE
10 a.m. Jan. 1
Wallowa County Park
North end of Wallowa Lake
By Katy Nesbitt
Go! Magazine
J
OSEPH — A long-held
holiday tradition in Wallowa
County is taking a dip in Wal-
lowa Lake mid-morning on New
Year’s Day.
The worldwide phenomena
of the “polar bear plunge” pits
men and women against nature
— hardy souls braving the frigid
embrace of their local water
source. Rich Wandschneider is a
founder and annual attender of
the event.
When asked why he cel-
ebrates the New Year in such
bracing fashion, he said, “Be-
cause it’s a helluva way to start
the new year, to wash the old
year away, to celebrate the fact
of longer days and new life, and
now, to remember those who
won’t be with us in 2022.”
Other original plungers,
Wandschneider said, are Rodd
Ambroson of Joseph, and Jim
Shelley, who moved to North
Carolina.
Ellen Morris Bishop/For the Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Brave residents plunge into 2021 on Jan. 1, 2021, for the annual New Year’s Day Polar Plunge at Wallowa Lake. The air
temperature was a chilly 26 degrees, and Randy Greenshields observed that there was ice around the lake’s edges.
This year’s event is Saturday, Jan. 1, at 10 a.m.
“College students coming
home joined in the fun, and have
often talked their parents and
younger siblings into joining
them,” Wandschneider said.
Another of the “founders” of
the Wallowa Lake New Year’s
plunge was Beth Gibans, who
succumbed to cancer last
summer. Her husband, Leon
Werdinger, said he never takes
the plunge himself but regularly
photographed the chaotic few
seconds of splashing of a couple
dozen people at the foot of Wal-
lowa Lake. In memory of Gibans,
he said the event is now dubbed
the “Beth Gibans Memorial Wal-
lowa Lake Polar Bear Plunge.”
“Beth relished swimming
in lakes, rivers and oceans,
both warm and cold, and was
one of the original fi ve people
who started the Wallowa Lake
New Year’s Plunge in 2007,”
Werdinger said.
Wandschneider said another
photographer at the event those
fi rst few years was Wallowa
County Chieftain reporter Elane
Dickenson, who died in early
November.
“Elane used to take pictures
and do a brief story on the prac-
tice,” Wandschneider said.
To join in, the Wallowa
County polar bear plungers
meet around 10 a.m. at the Wal-
lowa County Park on the north
end of the lake to welcome the
new year.
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