I can't tell you how envious I am of the opportunity to hike in warm climate and spontaneously find clear, refreshing, fresh water you can just jump in to bathe or swim, in as in this report. How lovely.
I am gradually working up to doing some naked wild swimming by looking for suitable spots, which are quite rare within a reasonable drive time and /or secluded enough. Even if discounting the naked bit, access to waters I have found are often the most difficult thing. We live in an area of clay soil conditions where the watercourses seem to accumulate soft, odoriferous gloopy mud and entrained leaves and vegetation more often than not. Unlike the plain water and rock of your desert conditions in AZ and New Mexico, Jbee and DDF, here in the UK any body of water is surrounded by vegetation of some sort and topsoil that makes access to rivers and small lakes both unpleasant and inaccessible. Of course, there are many places with beautiful, gin-clear upland tarns and rivers with clean, sandy rock-strewn bottoms and gentle downward-sloping approaches....just none that are, so far, handy for me without a couple or three hours drive! I am currently looking for a wild swimming club to introduce me to the techniques of wild swimming safely.
John
