Ice Water Is Only Nice In Summer

One of the constant off-season duties here at the Cottonwood Golf and Country Club is keeping an eye on the Bow River, which may seem idyllic for nature lovers, but the damage nature can do with ice is anything but idyllic.

Our dangerous time is really about Dec. 15 through Feb. 15, the reason being that we can see overnight temperatures between -30 to -34 C. What happens is, if we get any warming trend, the ice starts to flow through different channels and starts to chunk up. Basically, it finds another route to go.

The Bow River runs along eight and nine here at Cottonwood. We’ve got a little channel that goes behind the clubhouse that is still part of the river. Our catering facility is on a small island behind us.

People who have joined Cottonwood will hear us call it the island and look at us like we’re on Survivor or something. It can be the most beautiful place in the summer, but a big concern in the winter.

The Bow River goes right past it and there’s a channel in behind it. That’s where we monitor the ice build-up because the overnight temperatures get so cold. When the warm temperatures come in, the ice from upstream melts and sends down larger chunks.

Each time it goes and we get a little bit more ice coming through, it sits and raises the level for next time. It’s when you get the chunks that it rips and tears.

As of this writing, we’ve got a little bit of ice on the middle of the fairway on nine and it’s reached over on to 18. That will probably just sit there, melt and no big deal. At the short game area, it usually washes out a bunker and we have to redo that, but it doesn’t compare to what happened back in January, 1996.

We had all left about 3:30 in the afternoon. We didn’t realize how backed up it was and it released. There was a huge tidal wave of water and ice and we literally became part of the river quickly.

Damage to our catering facility was extensive. Our foundation was fine, even though when you walked over there, at some points, you were six feet above ground level on solid ice. It filled up our basement to about seven feet of water and ice.

At that point, we stored all of our golf carts underneath in our backshop and we left them there all winter. Seven feet of water and ice tends to change that very quickly.

When the ice came through, it took our backshop metal doors and deposited them at the back of our backshop. We used a cherry picking truck to get the carts out. We refurbished them and got through a season with them.

We had to replace drywall. There was some pro shop inventory there and some clubs. The ice picked our bridge up and dropped it about 80 to 100 yards downstream, taking it from one side of the short game area to the other side, but other than some repairs, the bridge is still in use today.

There was about $300,000 in damage and we all pitched in. When we opened, we still had a couple of chunks of ice out of the golf course. We had a temporary green on 18 and you couldn’t get to the original green due to a big chunk of ice.

There was a lot of clean-up to be done on the golf course once the water and ice was gone, some soddiing, but we actually came through it relatively unscathed when you think about how it looked originally. The most anxious time was three weeks of the unknown.

Obviously, we’re more prepared after such an experience. We don’t store things in the buildings over on the island anymore. We now keep all of our carts on higher ground and we don’t park our cars on certain parts of the parking lot anymore if there’s any sign of trouble.

The most important thing is safety first. You just make sure you cover all of your bases. Now, if the river looks like it’s getting high, we just go over and open the doors to allow it to flow through.

These are lessons learned from an unfortunate experience. They say that an incident like that only comes once in 100 years, so I hope that means I’m not around for the next one. The important thing is learning a lesson and preparing for the unexpected.