Taking the plunge: I started 2023 with a jump into the Mon River

It’s a yearly tradition that could be considered crazy: a jump on New Year’s Day into a cold body of water. In Pittsburgh, it’s a short jump into the Monongahela River.

I’m not a stranger to cold-weather tradition. I’ve lived in interior Alaska, where it’s a rite of passage to take a picture in front of the official temperature readout when it’s 40 below zero Fahrenheit. It took until my third winter living in Fairbanks for it to get cold enough to make the short trek to the digital sign in front of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but I happily stripped down to get the iconic shot in January 2017.

It took until my third New Year’s Day here to participate in Pittsburgh Polar Bear Club Plunge. I had chickened out in 2022 because I didn’t want to do it on my own.

If I known last year what I know now, I would have gone. Because regardless of how many people you show up with on the Mon Wharf off Fort Pitt Boulevard, Downtown, you will not be making the jump into the frigid waters alone.

A good couple of hundred Pittsburghers leapt into the water on Sunday. I was expecting a handful — a few dozen at most. But when my housemate Rebecca Spiess and I drove down to the wharf to park, we were greeted by a sizable crowd, most of whom were geared up to get a very cold morning jolt courtesy of the river.

The free event is sponsored by WTAE-TV’s Project Bundle Up, which provides coats and other cold weather items to those in vulnerable populations in collaboration with The Salvation Army. There were T-shirts and long-sleeved shirts available for purchase, with the proceeds going to Project Bundle Up.

First-timers

Cody Henn, still sporting a hair-sprayed mohawk from the night before, was jumping for the first time. He learned about the event on Facebook on New Year’s Eve. He’d worked at a South Side bar until 4 a.m., slinging drinks for rowdy crowds. He was at the river with his girlfriend, Brielle Gaurrach, who was just there to offer moral support.

“It’s a nice wake-up for the day,” Cody joked. He was confident his mohawk would withstand the jump, as it had held up under the rain on Saturday.

Chris Old came with his two daughters, Alison, 7, and Aubree, 8. It was the first time for all of them. Originally from Pittsburgh, Chris said his family had just come back from traveling the lower 48 states for a few years, and they decided to do new things in the city they hadn’t before their travels. They’ve ridden the Incline and the T, and today, they were taking the plunge.

Alison said she was “kinda scared and kinda excited,” and after the frigid dip, Aubree confirmed it was “really cold” in the river.

Lessons learned

Veterans of the jump came prepared, having learned from previous years.

Meg West was wearing a dryrobe-brand robe, which had a hood, fleece lining and covered her to midcalf. This was her fifth year out on the wharf, but she said she bought the robe after her first time. She just puts it on right after getting out of the water, and there’s no need for a towel.

“The other thing I learned is to go into the water wearing as little as possible,” she said.

Jennifer Douglass was clad in a white terry cloth bath robe and an eye-catching swim cap adorned with pink, yellow and black flowers, like what you’d see on synchronized swimmers. She wears it to keep her hair dry and prevent the chill that wet hair can bring after one gets out of the water.

“You’re gonna love it and get addicted to it,” the plunge veteran told me when I let her know it was my first year.

Another lesson learned from previous years? “This snaps you right out of whatever hangover you have from the night before,” she said. She and husband, Steve, don’t have wild New Year’s Eve nights anymore, though, since they have a daughter, Corinne, 3, at home.

Steve was on robe-holding duty and watched Corinne, who also wasn’t going to be jumping. But it was the first year she was old enough to understand the concept, Jennifer said.

When Rebecca and I made our way farther down the wharf, we started looking into the river, trying to figure out the logistics of the jump itself. I wondered aloud, “How are we supposed do it safely?” It’s not a clear drop from the wharf into the water. There’s a concrete slope that I definitely didn’t want to slam my toes into.

Fortunately, Dan Fry was standing nearby to offer a lot of very useful advice:

• Wear shoes.
• Jump far out, past the second line of concrete blocks visible under the water. Don’t dive. “There’s a lot of stuff out there, and you don’t want to meet it with your face.”
• Be patient getting out. The slabs of concrete are rough and covered in slick algae. (Dan wears work gloves for this reason, to prevent any fingertip and hand scrapes that you “end up feeling for days.”)
• Get your foot into the line separating the concrete slabs and wait for someone to take your hand to help you out the rest of the way.

Dan has been doing the plunge since 2003, with only a few years missed since then, so Rebecca and I took his advice to heart. There weren’t any safety or instructional announcements — not any that we could hear, anyway — but there were paramedics on the wharf and a Pittsburgh River Rescue boat in the water for emergency help.

The weather was encouraging — it was 45 degrees, according to my phone, a far cry from the negative and low-digit temperatures of just a week ago. Jennifer said she had been worried whether it would be possible to do the plunge in weather that cold and was pleased it had warmed up so much.

Dan and his friends were also happy for the change, although they had still made the jump in less-than-ideal conditions.

“One year, there was ice on the river, and we had to make a hole through it and jump in two at a time,” he said. Another year, there was a flash freeze, and people were slipping and sliding on the ice covering the wharf into the water. There also was a year where the wharf and river were just mud.

The plunge

When it hit 9:30 a.m. Sunday, people just starting jumping in. I didn’t hear a horn to kick it off, but no matter! It was time to strip down to my bathing suit and get in.

Rebecca went first, in boots and her glasses, both of which made it out of the river with her.

Then it was my turn. I took a fraction of a second to calculate the jump and leaped.

When I tell you it was cold, I mean COLD. It hit hard and fast, and my lungs were shocked. I swam to the surface (not far at all) and emerged with a gasp and a swear. It was a shivering, jolting paddle back to the edge of the wharf. I was desperate to get out of the water.

Dan was there, reminding me to find the foothold. “I got you,” he assured me with an outstretched hand. The sandal strap over my left toes had flopped off during the jump, so it was an awkward step back on dry land. With another helping hand from Rebecca, I was out of the river, dripping, hair falling out of its bun, hair tie clinging to the strands.

I don’t know how cold the water was, but it was the kind of cold that left my skin hot and tingling in the much warmer air (by comparison, at least!), and so standing around, drying off with my towel, was no hardship.

Jennifer had been right: Whatever effects from New Year’s Eve that lingered in me and Rebecca were gone, and we were addicted. It was a complete rush, and we couldn’t stop smiling and laughing with each other.

We were also handed a fresh Caliente pizza from passersby, a surprise and welcome treat. 

It was time to pack it in and wash off the Mon River at home. As Rebecca and I made our way back to my car, participants with wet hair, towels around their waists and squelching shoes talked and laughed. “We did it!” was a common refrain, and so was, “So are we going to do it again?”

As I told Dan, I’ll see you there.