Diving in Hidden Lake

Jim Lierman writes:

I visited your site and it was a nostalgic trip for me...thanks. I signed your guest register. But while I read your description of Amber Lake, (Now Hidden Lake), I wanted to let you know of some memories I have about it.

We started scuba diving in the old clay pit around 1970. I think I've covered most of the bottom of it exploring and just having fun when I was growing up. We had heard rumors that the south end (nearest the remains of the old brick factory, near the tracks by the steep bank) was really deep and thus we concentrated our diving at the north end. The north end was also more accessible. The rumors of the depth started at 60', then grew to 80', then to 100', and the rumors worked their way up to being over 400' deep! Well, being the adventurous souls we were, we decided to see how deep that end was. I was to be the deep diver. We got several sections of rope to measure the depth and I started descending and hit the top of a small tree about 20' down. My estimate is that it is only 40' deep. We found some railroad tracks on the bottom that started on the west side and curved up to the north side running along the middle of the bottom of the pit. It was always eerie scuba diving along the railroad tracks under the clay pit. I still vividly recall losing, and then finding my first snorkel along those railroad tracks. We also found some work shanties still somewhat intact on the southeast side near the end of one section of railroad tracks.

I haven't dove the clay pit since the 1970's. Most of it was about 20' deep. We never found any deep holes anywhere. Visibility was decent, but after rains clay particles would wash in and visibility would drop to near zero. I remember when they started building the Amber Lake Apartments they tried to put sand in a section and silted the water so badly they destroyed the visibility. We stopped diving there shortly after that and moved on to other lakes (Lake Michigan, France Park near Logansport, and Pine and Stone lakes in LaPorte).

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