Big Time Surfing in Alaska
Having been to Alaaka several times myself I can testify to the brutal beauty of the place. It really is like no where else on our planet. However, due to the often unpredictable weather conditions it has never crossed my mind that the rugged coast line would lend itself particularly well to surfing. Not so according to this article on Outside Online
Although appropriately entitled “The Coldest Ride” the article certainly shines some light on Fall in Yakutat, Alaska, which usually means camouflage, salmon, and the sweetest swells on the far north shore.
According to the article:
“THE WAVES AREN’T BIG, but they’re long and glassy, and the women have them all to themselves. They trade off on slow lefts that break, one after another, off a sandy beach strewn with cobble and seaweed. Beyond the surf, the September ocean is smooth.
This spot wasn’t easy to reach; it took a full day of travel from Los Angeles on three separate flights, then this morning a local boatman shuttled us across the bay in a skiff. We carried the boards over the jungled isthmus of a tiny island to this beach, where the tail end of a swell is rolling in from across the Pacific.
But those trees lining the beach aren’t palms—they’re Sitka spruce. Out past the breakers, a salmon troller chugs by, and across the bay, wrapped in the clouds, stands North America’s third-highest peak, 18,008-foot Mount St. Elias. We’re a lot closer to the North Pole than the equator, which explains why six-time world-champion surfer Layne Beachley, perhaps for the first time in her 16-year career, came looking for waves this morning in an ankle-length parka.”
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