Man aims to swim Flathead Lake

If the weather cooperates on Sunday, Mark Johnston plans to tackle an end-to-end swim of Flathead Lake.

Johnston aims to swim the 28 miles unassisted.

Three other swimmers have conquered the big lake, but Johnston said they had the assistance of either a wetsuit or fins and some took breaks.

He plans to make the trip without a wetsuit or breaks, something he calls English Channel rules.

Johnston plans to swim Flathead Lake from north to south starting a 6 a.m. He expects it will take him about 14 hours to finish at Riverside Park in Polson.

Over the last several years, Johnston has become an open water swim competitor, with a special interest in cold water.

In February, he competed in the winter swimming championship in Vermont where a hole was cut in the ice for swimmers to compete.

Johnston won two out of the four events, which included 25- and 100-yard races, on a day when the wind chill was minus 20 degrees. Competitors filled out a questionnaire about why they were competing. Johnston said he laughed and wrote: “I finally found a sport that is conducive for my body shape, since I have a little extra insulation.”

Johnston and his wife moved from Denver to Polson to help get the Mission Valley Aquatics center started. Now they have moved on to volunteering with groups such as the Flathead Lakers that work to protect clean water and healthy ecosystems.

“There is synergy between open-water swimming and clean water, so I’ve connected up with them to help out,” he said. “It just makes a lot of sense that if I’m swimming, I should help protect the water. It goes hand in hand.”

Johnston picked up competitive swimming at an early age. He and his wife, Dana, were swim coaches in Denver and have both become avid swimmers. Johnston coached the U.S. masters team at the world championships in Sweden.

However, Johnston didn’t pick up open-water swimming until 2008, when he and a group of his friends in Denver decided to form a relay to swim the English Channel.

?The group was never able to attempt the crossing because of high wind speeds and storms the entire week they were there.

Over the past several years, open-water swimming and cold-water swimming have picked up more followers.

Johnston attributes that to the people wanting to make the most out of their time on the water.

“Living here, the water is pretty cold for eight months out of the year,” he said.

“People only swim for a few months, and it’s a shame, it’s such an awesome area. I wanted to be able to swim longer in the season. There are so many places that are cold, and people want to take advantage of the beauty, so they are testing the limits.”                                                                                                                                    

Johnston plans to attend the Vermont competition again next year but has quite a few events before then, including his planned Flathead Lake adventure.

He turned down a trip to Argentina to swim in glacial lakes there, but has a trip to Greece planned in September to be a swim guide.

Locally, Johnston is involved with open-water swims in the Big Arm area and the inaugural Paddle for Clean Water poker paddle in July.