Pony Pasture Polar Plunge

For the 5th year in a row folks will splash around in the James on New Year’s Day on purpose. It is time for the annual Polar Bear Plunge. The event is going down at noon on 1/1/2012 at Pony Pasture. Phil Riggin of Richmond.com has some insight on the roots of this, in my mind, crazy but fun event.

“Last year, we had an unexpected boon of news cameras and community bloggers at our event,” said organizer Courtney Cotton. A native of Pittsburgh, she had seen crazy ‘Burghers jump into the Monongahela River and decided Richmond needed its own winter dip, so she and friend Lorene Davidson came up with the idea to hold the Pony Pasture polar plunge.

The river was at around 4 feet by the Westham gauge last year and the air temperature at noon was around 50. This year it should be above 7 feet — which could force plungers to wear life jackets (haha) — and the water temperature should be in the lower 40s.

Flickr User and local Sandy’s Dad has some pictures from previous plunges.