Why Two Teens Jumped Into Lake Tahoe Every Day for an Entire Year
In winter, the picturesque Lake Tahoe is battered by wind, snow, and icy air.
That’s great for skiers who frequent the surrounding ski resorts, but less so if, like Dane Gaffney and Anders Koijane, your goal is to swim in the lake’s often frigid depths every day for a year.
The teenagers and Tahoe area residents began the challenge last year in September, documenting their adventures on Gaffney’s Instagram page.
One video posted in January shows the pair going swimming amidst a snowstorm. Before backflipping into the water, Koijane offers a deadpan assessment of the weather. “Another perfect day to jump in the lake,” he says. It was one nippy experience among many.
Both 17, Gaffney and Koijane have been friends since elementary school and now play on the same basketball team. Oftentimes, after going to the gym, they’d walk down to the marina in Tahoe City and take a dip. Those casual swims spawned the yearlong commitment. “We just kind of decided, ‘Hey, why not just make it a challenge?'” Gaffney said. “And so we just filmed the first video, uploaded it, and never looked back.”
Check out a highlight reel of the challenge below. Keep reading for more about Gaffney and Koijane’s Lake Tahoe story.
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Watch: Dane Gaffney & Anders Koijane Lake Tahoe Highlight Reel:
Along the way, the pair has been joined by friends, Tahoe locals, and Gaffney’s dad, the famed ski filmmaker Scott Gaffney, who made regular appearances in the videos. They even secured a cameo from actor and comedian Tony Cavalero, known for playing Keefe Chambers in the TV series The Righteous Gemstones.
That celebrity presence isn’t as odd as it sounds. Scott had previously met Cavalero through a mutual friend in the filmmaking industry, and told POWDER that the actor “was totally game to have a little fun with a jump with Dane.” Fun indeed. During his cameo, Cavalero literally tears his shirt off on the dock. Later, he leaps into the water holding hands with Scott.
It wasn’t always a communal or star-studded effort, though. Koijane, who likes to finish school, get home, and eat before basketball practice, usually preferred using his neighbor’s pier or another beach rather than going to the marina with Gaffney and Scott. Koijane would send Gaffney his solitary swimming videos to be included in the Instagram posts. Gaffney sent him texts to keep him accountable.
“I knew Dane was going to do it every day, because he was really adamant about this,” Koijane said. “I would always forget, so I’d be jumping in at like midnight, barely before the next day.”
The two described their experiences with the challenge differently. “There were definitely a few days where we would drive down to the lake and I would just be like, ‘Why am I really about to go jump in right now?’ But I think definitely having my dad there made it a lot easier for me,” said Gaffney. Koijane, in contrast, said it was “a lot harder than I was expecting,” particularly when it was cold, cloudy, or he was alone.
Their rule for missed days upped the ante. Koijane and Gaffney had a few basketball games and other commitments during the winter where they had to leave Lake Tahoe. When they got back, they’d dive in multiple times in a row, accounting for every day they missed. At times during the colder months, the lake’s water temperature dipped below 40 degrees.
“Once you jump in once, it’s okay, but that second time, it just triples in intensity of how cold you are, and your brain just stops functioning,” said Koijane.
“I feel like that punishment actually worked out perfectly,” added Gaffney. “That got pretty rough.”
To conclude their effort, Gaffney and Koijane asked those who had been following along online to join them on their second-to-last day, September 21, 2025. The video from that celebration starts with the pair standing together on the edge of a dock.
Then, the camera pans to show the cheering crowd of people who came out to swim and show their support. The encouraging Instagram comments had translated to the real world.
“That was great to have that many people experience what we were experiencing all summer and the whole year,” said Koijane.
When we spoke a few days after the challenge ended, Koijane told me that despite the suffering, he would miss watching Gaffney’s video recaps. Gaffney, for his part, was relieved that he didn’t have to visit the water’s edge every day anymore. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he also has a lingering tic from their daily routine. “I’ll be in my room, it’s like, nine o’clock, and I’ll think, ‘Oh, wait, I haven’t jumped in yet,’” Gaffney said.
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