- Shane Schieffer plans a 140-mile swim across Lake Powell starting Sept. 2.
- He will swim 14 miles daily while towing 215 lbs. of supplies on a paddleboard.
- Schieffer, who hasn't swam meaningfully for 18 years, has been training since March for this expedition.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Colorado man plans to complete an unprecedented, 140-mile swim across Lake Powell.
Forty-nine-year-old Shane Schieffer told KSL-TV he expects to begin his 10-day journey on Sept. 2.
"I'm attempting to be the first person to swim the full length of Lake Powell," Schieffer said during an interview on Tuesday. "My goal is to do 14 miles a day, so basically swimming as long as I can while it's light, every day."
Adding to the difficulty, Schieffer said he would also be tugging 215 pounds of supplies and gear with him on a paddleboard.
"I'm doing it expedition-style — I've got this rig behind me, I'm pulling all my gear self-supported," Schieffer said. "(The paddleboard) just attaches with a long boom pole to my waist, and I swim, and it just tugs along behind me."
It would be an improbable feat for most, and it probably would have also seemed that way to Schieffer earlier in the year, given he had not swam meaningfully in 18 years.
Schieffer, the chief operating officer at VersaClimber, said he started training on the upright strength and conditioning machine for 20 minutes per day in March.
He began to test himself with progressively longer swims, including a 10-hour swim three months into his training.
"I went to the pool, and I swam 1,250 flip turns — 17.5 miles in a 25-yard pool," Schieffer said.
He soon eyed a much larger adventure — swimming across Lake Powell.
"I have a safety crew out there, so they'll make sure I'm OK," Schieffer said. "I've anticipated about 200,000 rotations of the shoulders out there in the water."
Schieffer said he always "daydreamed" of contributing a story to the adventure community.
"I thought, 'What's my expression of, you know, my kind of curiosity for the limits of myself and the outdoors,'" he said.
He said he expected to do quite a bit of self-reflection along the way.
"It's just a chance to reflect on life a little bit as a person, trying to figure out how I handle hard things and how I can handle hard things in new ways and maybe how I can take myself and my adventures to the next level," Schieffer said.
Schieffer said anyone could follow his journey on Instagram.
