The deep end

Bighorn Divers to build year-round dive pool

A full-sized dive pool planned by Bighorn Divers will open the door for year-round diving certification in the Flathead Valley.

The Kalispell dive shop broke ground Wednesday on a new facility in the Glacier Business Center north of Kalispell that will offer a 20-by-30-foot dive pool and 1,000 square feet of retail space.

Bighorn Divers has outgrown its small space on the east end of Ole's Country Store at the corner of U.S. 93 and Reserve Drive, and it was time for a decision, said Steve Golleher, who owns Ole's and is a partner with Mark Kuhr and Wes Wilkinson in the dive business.

"About a year ago we said we either had to get out or do it right," Golleher said. "There's enough interest in diving in the valley and income levels are ratcheting up, so we decided to go for it."

Glacier Business Center developer Norman Beach, who helped Golleher put together the project, likened the expansion to moving from "an elevator to the Taj Mahal."

A steel building manufactured by Sunward Corp. of Denver will be delivered in mid-March, and once the roof is on, excavation for the 12-foot-deep pool will begin.

"We're doing it that way so the materials aren't exposed to the weather," Beach said.

Erickson's Pools of Kalispell will construct the dive pool. The new facility should be up and running by mid-June, Golleher said, and will allow the business to triple the number of divers it can certify in a year. In the past, Bighorn Divers has certified about a hundred divers a year.

Kuhr and Wilkinson, who both have more than 25 years experience as dive instructors, will continue to teach in the new facility, along with other longtime divers Chuck Curry and Robert Hanson.

The year-round pool puts Bighorn Divers in an elite group; there are only a half-dozen indoor dive pools in the Pacific Northwest, Golleher said - "a couple in Seattle, a couple in Portland, one in Coeur d'Alene and now here."

Bighorn Divers has relied largely on using the Woodland Park pool during the summer to teach diving classes, but that puts instructors at the mercy of the public-pool schedule, Golleher said. The dive pool will allow instructors to teach year-round.

The certification course is an intensive 50 hours of instruction using the Professional Association of Diving Instructors program.

"It's the largest certification agency in the world and we teach verbatim," he said.

Certification is mandatory for diving excursions. There's another option for beginners - the Discovery Diving Class - a brief lesson that gives participants "a taste of diving" with a brief lesson and a short, shallow dive.

Bighorn Divers arranges trips to overseas areas such as Belize and Hawaii so divers can complete the open-water requirement. That requirement can also be completed locally during the summer.

"By the time they're finished, they're well-versed with skills and safety issues," Golleher said. "We like to tell people, 'Now you have a license to learn to dive.'"

Those who have completed 75 to 100 dives are considered top-level divers, said Golleher, who has completed more than 1,000 dives. Kuhr and Wilkinson have each logged thousands of dives.

While Bighorn Divers teaches recreational diving only, Golleher said he has seen an upswing in technical diving over the past few years. Technical diving is deep diving involving environments such as caves or wrecks.

"People like to challenge the margins of safety," Golleher said. "With scuba equipment today, it's not uncommon to exceed 200 feet."

The record depth is about 1,000 feet using a mix of gases.

"My limits are about 140 to 150 feet," Golleher said.

When the dive pool isn't being used for diving classes, it will be available for swimming lessons, water aerobics and other group activities on a rental basis.

The move to Glacier Business Center will allow expansion of retail diving equipment. Bighorn sells diving, snorkeling and water-sports gear.

"Selling diving equipment is pretty specialized," Golleher said. "The way we price it, we're one of the cheapest, so we don't lose sales to the Internet. It's worked well for us to competitively price our equipment so we can sell it year round."

Mixed gas called Nitrox, which includes more oxygen for longer bottom times, also will be available at the new shop.

The new shop will be decorated with displays of old diving equipment and plenty of underwater photographs.

"We want people to be able to look around and be fascinated," he said.

Another service Bighorn Divers offers is travel planning to diving hot spots.

"Some of the best fresh-water diving is in the Seattle area, Tacoma and Port Hardy," Golleher said, adding that Flathead Valley's McGregor, Bitterroot, Flathead and McDonald lakes offer great diving opportunities.

Kuhr started Bighorn Divers in Bozeman in 1983 and the business moved with him to the Flathead Valley in 1988. It was located in Silver Tip Sports in Whitefish for three years until it moved to the Ole's location in 1991.

A grand opening will be held this summer. Golleher plans to have instructors offer the Discovery Diving Class to anyone who wants to try out the new pool during the grand opening.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com