Where to Scuba Dive in Colorado (and Just Outside It)
Online May 14, 2026
Yes, you can scuba dive in Colorado. People are genuinely surprised by this, which is part of why the diving here stays uncrowded.
The catch is honest: Colorado's lakes are cold, visibility varies by site, and none of them look like the Caribbean. But if you're working on your skills, training for a bigger trip, or just want to get wet between vacations, there are solid options within driving distance of Denver.
Here's what we send our students to.
Chatfield Reservoir — the home base
Chatfield is the most popular dive site in the state, and for good reason. It's 25 minutes from our shop in Lakewood, it has a dedicated dive area, and it's where most of our students do their open water certification dives.
What to expect: visibility runs anywhere from 5 to 15 feet depending on the time of year. Summer is better. Spring snowmelt stirs things up. Depth in the dive area reaches about 30 feet, which is enough to practice your skills but not enough to get into trouble.
Water temperature runs in the low 50s Fahrenheit at depth through most of the year. A wetsuit is not enough here for most people. If you're doing more than a quick checkout dive, a dry suit makes a real difference.
Parking and access require a Colorado State Parks pass. Go early on weekends in summer.
Aurora Reservoir — better visibility, more steps
Aurora Reservoir requires a permit to dive, which filters out the casual crowd and keeps the site in decent shape. Visibility is often 10 to 20 feet, which is noticeably better than Chatfield on most days.
Depth is similar, reaching around 30 feet in the main basin. It's a flat sandy bottom with not much in the way of features, which makes it good for skills practice. Cold water applies here too.
To dive Aurora, you'll need to register with the City of Aurora and show proof of certification. The process isn't complicated, but budget a few days to get the permit sorted before your first visit.
Blue Hole, Santa Rosa, NM — worth the drive
Santa Rosa, New Mexico is about 4.5 hours south of Denver, and Blue Hole is one of the more memorable freshwater dives in the Southwest.
It's a circular spring-fed pool, roughly 80 feet across and about 80 feet deep at the center. The water temperature is a constant 62 degrees year-round, and visibility is often 80 to 100 feet. After diving in Colorado's lakes, the visibility alone feels like a different sport.
The site is free and open to the public. You'll share it with snorkelers and swimmers, but the diving area is well-defined and the site is managed respectfully. Bring a dive flag.
It's also worth noting that Santa Rosa sits at around 4,600 feet, so altitude diving procedures still apply. You're not escaping altitude just by leaving Colorado.
Homestead Crater, Midway, UT — warm water, unusual setting
This one is genuinely different. The Homestead Crater is a geothermal spring inside a natural limestone dome in Midway, Utah, about 4.5 to 5 hours from Denver.
The water is naturally warm, running between 90 and 96 degrees Fahrenheit. It's 55 feet across and goes to about 65 feet deep. Visibility is good on most days. There's nothing else like it in the region.
The crater is owned by the Homestead Resort. Diving requires a reservation and a small fee. Wetsuits are not allowed because of the warm water and the enclosed ecosystem, so it's one of the few Colorado-region sites where you'll dive without thermal protection.
Altitude: Midway is at about 5,600 feet. Altitude procedures apply.
A word on altitude
Every site listed here is above 4,500 feet. That matters for your dive planning. Your computer needs to be set for altitude before your first dive, and the standard no-decompression limits you learned at certification need a slight adjustment.
If you have your PADI Altitude Diver certification, you already know how to handle this. If you don't, it's a one-day course and absolutely worth doing before you dive Colorado regularly. We run it out of our Lakewood shop and can get you sorted quickly.
There's more detail in our altitude diving guide if you want to understand the specifics before diving.
What to bring
A short gear list for local Colorado diving:
Dry suit or thick wetsuit (7mm minimum; dry suit preferred for anything longer than a checkout dive). Hood and gloves, because 52 degrees gets into your hands fast. An SMB (surface marker buoy) for Chatfield in particular, where there can be boat traffic. A dive flag. Your certification card. Cash or a credit card for site fees.
Getting more out of local diving
The Colorado sites don't have walls, wrecks, or reef. But they're close, they're available year-round with the right gear, and they keep your skills sharp between bigger trips.
A lot of our customers do a couple of Chatfield dives in the spring to shake off the rust, then head somewhere tropical in the fall with fresh skills and much better air consumption than they'd have going in cold.
If you have questions about any of these sites or want to know what gear makes sense for local diving, come by the shop or call us. We've been diving all of these sites for a long time.
Underwater Phantaseas is a PADI 5 Star IDC in Lakewood, CO. Call 303-988-6725 or browse our courses.
