SCAR- a belated blog

Well, it has been a Hot Minute since I swam SCAR, so instead of a swim recap and race review, this blog is going to be more focused on;

What I wish I knew before doing SCAR

And

Look at all my Gorgeous Photos

What is SCAR?

I just loved the Sa-wah-rohs so much

SCAR is a race where the name is the acronym of the 4 lakes that you cover over 4 days; Saguaro, Canyon, Apache, Roosevelt.

[And herein lies the first thing I wish I knew when I flew out to the US to swim SCAR: it’s pronounced Sa-wah-roh. Not Sa-gur-ro. Sah like sat, wah like wasabi, roh like row row row your boat].

You swim Saguaro (9.5miles, 15.2km) on the first day, Canyon (9miles, 14.3km) on the second day, Apache (17miles, 27.3km) on the third day, then you have a rest day on the 4th day, before a 10km loop in Roosevelt on the 4th night.

How accurate are those distances?

Good question, well asked. It’s tricky, because of course everyone on the swims takes different routes, and the high canyon/rock walls can interfere with GPS signals, but the general conclusion I have come to is that the swims are not quite that long. I am making this claim from my own GPS data, my partner’s in the kayak, other kayakers’, other swimmers’, my own times and how fast I know that I swim, and averages over the years. Don’t @ me about this. While not exact, I personally think that the distances are closer to: Saguaro: 13km, Canyon: 14km, Apache: 23km, Roosevelt: 10km.^*1

The Class of 2025 photo at Patty’ welcome swim

SCAR starts the day before you expect, with Patty's welcome swim party at Saguaro lake. This was a perfect opportunity to meet all the swimmers that you'd be spending the next couple of days with, get acclimatised to the water temperature, shake out if you've travelled a long way, and just settle yourself to be a little bit more at ease. 

Some people milled around a bit after the swim party, but most people didn't stick around for more than about an hour. You can swim whatever distance you want; some people did a 20 minutes out and back, and some people swam for about an hour to an hour 15. There was kayak and SUP safety support on the water, but it was primarily just the kayakers who also wanted a warm up.

In the evening, Kent (the race director and driving force of SCAR) puts on a welcome party and barbecue. 

If you're expecting Kent to tell you all about the logistics and the planning and how the week is going to work and where you need to be and what you need to take and what you need to do….. don't expect that.

The evening barbecue is an opportunity to meet some of the other swimmers, meet the kayakers, find out more about the people you're going to be spending next 4 days with and grab one of the goody bags. 

At this point one of the things I would say about SCAR is that you will get the most out of it if you organise to spend time with people. There aren't any other organised meals or organised dinners after this welcome party, and if you want to spend the whole 4 days getting to know other swimmers, you need to plan it and organise it yourself. At the welcome party, grab other people’s mobile numbers! Grab their social media handles. Ask them where they’re staying, ask if they have meal plans. Will and I ended up falling in/(following around) the Aussies (<3 big love to you guys), but you do need to organise each meal and when to see people outside of the swims.

How the swims work is like this.

You and your kayaker will hop on a pontoon boat and be driven to the “staging area”. The initial drive can be very cold (and I run very warm). It will be very early in the morning, sometimes before the sun comes up, and you are driving a long way, at speed, with no protection from the wind. Take a changing robe or puffer jacket or something of similar warmth. 

At the staging area, you will do your final preparation. You will put on sunscreen and anything you want to stop chafe, you will put on your hat and goggles and your kayaker will select their kayak and set it up the way they want it. At this point, your dry bag and your kayakers’ dry bag have to go in your kayak. Nothing is going to stay on the pontoon boats. EVRYTHING that you take with you, needs to go onto the kayaks.

The buoy line at the start of Apache

You will have been sorted into waves before this, and before you got on the pontoon boats. Once everyone in your wave is ready at the staging area, the swimmers will get back on the pontoon, boats and be driven to the start. The kayakers will launch from the staging area and will paddle towards the start line and meet the swimmers part-way.

For the swimmers at the start, you are all going to jump off the pontoon boats and swim up to the buoy line that marks the safe area in front of each dam. Once everyone is touching, the buoy line and has the other hand in the air, Kent will shout go and you will be off. You basically just follow each lake, (They are really more like river sections), until you find your kayaker, and then you're off!

So to recap that;

• Get on the pontoon boat in the morning with your kayaker, with everything you need for the swim, and in your normal (not sunscreen-y and vaseline-y) clothes.

• At the staging area, get into your swimsuit, put on your sunscreen, put on your anti-chafe, put everything else into dry bags and into the kayaks.

• Swimmers get back onto the pontoon boats, and are driven to the start. Don’t get mess on the pontoon boats.

• Kayakers meet the swimmers as they swim down from the start, then settle into the swim.
  
  

Happy at the finish line

When you get to the finish, you'll be at another buoy line at the top of the next dam. The swimmer will climb onto the pontoon boat, grab your dry bag and start getting warm. On Saguaro and Canyon lakes, your kayaker has to paddle back to the start line; they're not allowed to get on the pontoon boat. On Apache lake, your kayaker hops on the boat too to get warm and dry, since you're much further from the launching point. On Roosevelt, it's a looped course so you're both back at the start either way!

Sometimes you can be sat on the pontoon boat for 30-45mins, while enough swimmers finish to fill up the boat. Then you will all be driven back to the start.

In your dry bag, it's useful to have;

• towel, changing robe, warm things you can throw on top of your grotty swimwear

• wet wipes if you want to clean your face and hands 

• protein or recovery powder if you take that (they have water and beer on the pontoon boats)

• a snack

• shoes (crocs, flip flops etc) as some of the pontoons and launches get VERY hot to stand on

TEMPERATURE

I will confess, that as a relatively hardy English swimmer, I went into SCAR thinking to myself “cold? There is no way that the desert is cold in April. It must be soft southern swimmers, or novice swimmers, or Floridians/south Americans who are finding it cold.”

I was wrong, I was very very very wrong. I have swum 16hrs in 13.5° and 7hrs in 11° quite happily and I was WRONG.

The 4 lakes are not actually lakes, they are the individual dammed (flow stopped by dams, not that they are in hell in eternal damnation) sections of the Salt River. As you progress through the 4 days, you are effectively driving up river to a dam, then swimming back down river to the next dam. You then hop in your car, drive to the next start, get the pontoon boat up to the next upriver dam, then swim down to the top of the dam that you started at yesterday.

One of the dams on the river. So you start day 1 (for example), below the dam, and swim down river. Then on the next day, you start below the next dam, and swim to the top of this one.

Most of the time, the dam sluices are closed, so the water is stationary. Overnight and in the early mornings, dam operators open the sluices to allow water to flow downstream. So water from the bottom of the deepest section of the upriver ‘lake’, is allowed to flow down into the shallowest section of the downriver ‘lake’, where you’re about to swim. And what do we know about water that has sunk to the bottom of a body of water?

IT IS MUCH COLDER.

So when you start your swim each day, you are going to be starting in MUCH colder water that has been sluiced downstream. The water will not warm up until the sun rises, or until you are much further downstream and the fresh flowing water mixes with the downstream still water.

Here are my water temperature readings from 2025, the variation being from start to finish:

S: 14.5-22.9°

C: 12.2-18°

A: 11-18°

R: 19.4°.

In Apache, the cold stuck around for nearly 3km of swimming. 11° is not to be trifled with, multiple swimmers were pulled out of the water (one unconscious) due to hypothermia.

Bear in mind too for Roosevelt, that although I was nice and toasty warm in the water, it is FREEZING in the desert at night. I might have been comfortable, but my kayaker was nearly hypothermic. These swims are a team sport, look after your kayaker and peer pressure them into wearing more layers for Roosevelt.

Unrelated to the cold, but related for Roosevelt- mentally prepare both yourself and your kayaker that on Roosevelt, you are going to be in the absolute pitch black. It is an international Dark Sky park, and there is not going to be a lit-up boat or anything for you to follow. There will be other teeny tiny pinpricks of light from other people’s fairy lights and glow sticks, but other than that it is likely going to be the darkest water you have ever swum in.

FOOD

After Saguaro, Kent and the team puts on a food van.

Tortilla flat

After Canyon lake, you’re going to be driving towards Apache Marina resort and on the way there is a set of restaurants called Tortilla Flat. Everyone stops to eat here and it's a good tourist spot. Grab some friends, grab a table and chat with some other swimmers while you have a late lunch/early dinner on your way to Apache.

After Apache, as long as you're staying in Apache Lake Marina Resort like everyone else does, you will probably be having dinner in your room if you've got a kitchenette or in the resort restaurant. There is no shop around Apache, so you need to take all your food with you for Canyon evening/dinner, Apache morning/breakfast, Apache evening/dinner, AND Roosevelt morning/breakfast.

After Roosevelt, because it's a very late finishing swim, the end of the whole experience is going to feel very weirdly abrupt. It will be about 10pm. People will be really cold and everyone will just disappear, and if you haven't organised to see anyone for breakfast the next morning that will be it! That will be your SCAR experience over. I would HIGHLY recommend getting the phone numbers or contact details of some friends you've made and organising to meet them for breakfast or brunch the next day, probably in Globe where you're staying. 

Finally, my odds and ends top tips;

• Take laminated maps to give to your kayaker.

• If you are taking your own kayaker or if they are more novice; buy your kayaker a gel or a memory foam seat pad. The kayaking is not tough, the sitting is.

• Similarly, get your kayaker a light-weight sunproof layer. E.g. a white longsleeve top, and a desert hat with a long back. You are going to be in the desert in early summer. It will be 10-11° overnight and when you start each morning, and then it will rise to 30-35° by mid-day each day. You can’t finish the swims if you have turned your kayaker into a rotisserie chicken in the sun.

• I liked having face wipes and moisturiser in my bag on the pontoon boat post-swim. Sometimes you might be waiting ~45mins, and personally I hate having stuff on my face once I’m out of the water.

• Half of the challenge of Apache is that you have to swim past your hotel at half way. And at that halfway point, you also turn the corner of the lake, and go from being beautifully protected from the wind, into a headwind. It is deliciously tempting to quit. It gets hard, you’ve been swimming for 3-4++ hours, it has been freezing, the hotel and a warm shower is right there, and you are swimming head into wind. Prepare yourself for this, because if I see any of you quitting after I’ve warned you about it, then I am going to be very grumpy.

• Tortilla Flat saloon is fab for food, with MASSIVE portion sizes

• Copper Bistro in Globe was 10/10 for a meal stop

• The restaurant in Apache Marina Resort is absolutely fine. It has options, it is hot, it is absolutely a-ok.

• The drive from Canyon to Apache (the AZ-88 Apache Trail), is not as scary as websites make out. Yes it is unpaved, but it is mostly wide, absolutely gorgeous, and absolutely safe. We did it in a hire car- a Ford Explorer- which was absolutely fine.

Beyond that, SCAR is undoubtably one of my favourite ever swims. It is utterly beautiful, well organised, fantastic value for money, and overall just so much fun. Will (my kayaker for every swim I have ever done in my career), also says it is his favourite swim. If you’re on the fence, just do it! You won’t regret it.

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^*1 Day 1 Saguaro Lake is 15.4 km according to SCAR, 13.3km according to the marathon swimming federation, and about 13 km based on the average of all of the swimmer and kayaker strava routes I could find.
Day 2 Canyon lake is 14.3km according to SCAR, 14.1km according to the MSF, and about 13km based on averages.
Day 3 Apache is 27.3km by SCAR, 22.8km by MSF, about 23km based on averages.
Day 4: Roosevelt is VERY accurate. Very accurate! 10/10/10.