River surfing is fringe, niche, out of the ordinary.
There are, however, a handful of spots across the world where this novelty surfing sect thrives – like the Eisbach River in Germany (where river surfing first got its start), or the Snake River in Wyoming, or in Bend, Oregon (where Gerry Lopez now lives and frequently surfs the freshwater offerings), among others.
But…in California? Not so much.
Naysayers be damned, because it turns out, there is a river surfing spot in California near Mammoth as seen in the video above. The clip comes from the crew at SnowBrains, and with a further description, they explained: “Yesterday morning, we skied through a lava tube cave. Yesterday afternoon, we surfed killer river wave.”
Compared to other, more famous river waves, this one is admittedly a bit smaller. And it’s quite narrow, too. Not much room for big turns, and forget about any airs. It’s not that steep either, requiring the crew to use a rope to stay afloat.
However, after this winter’s historic snowfall, it’s expected that the rivers are flowing strongly as the temperatures warm up. And the guys said this is just about as big as this wave gets:
“We’ve been surfing here for 17 years and this is about as big as we’ve seen this wave.”
It’s a good thing California has so many real, ocean surf spots. Otherwise, it would be pretty low on the totem pole for river surfing destinations.
Regardless, still pretty cool to know that there are novelty freshwater spots (aside from Slater’s Surf Ranch) in the Golden State…if you know where to look.
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