It’s Like Plunging Under The North Pole: My Mind-stretching Ice Dive In The French Alps

Move over wild swimming … ice diving in a frozen mountain lake and camping under the Milky Way connects you with nature at its most raw and magical

It’s five below freezing on the ice-caked surface of a lake in the French Alps and, as I prepare to slip, seal-like, into the black water, my racing mind is begging me to wimp out. Diving in a frozen lake at night – below ice, beneath the stars, at an altitude of almost 2,000 metres? What an absurd idea.

An hour ago, I was inside a tiny mountain refuge beside Lac Robert drinking tea, the temperature outside dropping by the second. Now, I’m outdoors and zipped into a cumbersome drysuit (designed to prevent water from entering), with blue latex gauntlets sealed at the wrists and a black frogman hood wrenched over my head.