I called my friend Scott Gaffney, a veteran Tahoe surfer, and sped over to his house in Tahoe City. We suited up, and I realized I was lacking a hood…this time I had gloves and boots, but my head was going to suffer. The wind was howling, and it was starting to snow steadily, punctuated by bouts of frozen ice and graupel.

We made our way around the north shore to Scott’s secret surf spot, and things were looking good so we decided to go for it. This was the first chance I had to use the underwater housing for my Canon s90 and I was beyond fired up. I totally hate cold water, so it had taken me some serious internal convincing to get to the point where I was ready to go swim in 40 degree water for an hour, in a snowstorm, with 50 mph winds.

Despite my reservations I dove in and tried to get positioned in a spot where I could try and get some action shots of Scott. Every five minutes or so, a “set” would roll in, and I would be forced to duck dive, which brought on an intense ice cream headache. I started getting some decent shots though, and I was pretty happy with the camera. I definitely could have fine tuned the exposure settings, I think I needed to be using a faster shutter speed, and I could have set the ASA-equivalent a little higher.  It’s extremely difficult in those conditions to bob around and edit the shots I was getting, so I just kept shooting. Lesson learned though – take more time to fine tine while in the water, and experiment a bit more. I ordered a hood yesterday, so hopefully next time my brain’s a little less frozen. Enjoy.

via Grant Kaye Photography Blog.

I was over skiing some spring sugar at Alpine Meadows earlier today and on the way back grabbed a picture of this unnamed surfer catching waves by Agate Bay. That ride looks oddly like an ironing board. Please Confirm. Also, I like a little starch in the collar.

You might wonder what kind of person would purposefully dive into 40 degree water in 40-50 mph winds, when it’s 30 degrees out, in March, with a huge snowstorm bearing down on them? Crazy, right? You’d be correct in that assumption. I called up legendary Tahoe surfer and renowned ski filmmaker Scott Gaffney, and sure enough, he was planning on heading out in the afternoon. Scott wanted to wait a few more hours to give the wind the chance to whip up the waves.

We met in Incline at Burnt Cedar beach, and sussed out the waves. They were peeling pretty good around the private pier to the west of the parking lot, but Scott didn’t like the look of them, and the wind was howling. By howling I mean “blow you over” howling. So we hopped back into the car, and headed east through Incline and on to Sand Harbor.

Sand Harbor was looking….messy. But surfable. In fact, there were two guys already in the water, bobbing up and down in the waves. The wind was not quite as strong here, but it was still freezing. Scott and Mike from Squaw suited up and get ready to jump in.

The surf was…small. But the guys managed to get up for some short rides. More for the novelty than anything else, but I could see the potential for some serious waves at a few places around Sand Harbor.

Does this count as a bottom turn? Hard to say…

I unfortunately had to head back to Truckee at 5:15, so I only managed to fire off a few frames of the action. The sky to the west was growing ominously darker, and by the time I left, raindrops had begun to fall from the sky. Scott told me alter on that the waves got bigger and better after I had left – oh well.

via Surfing…..Lake Tahoe? | Grant Kaye Photography Blog.

BY CHRISTIN ANELLEMANN

Winter in the Sierra and Tahoe Range is notorious for its hellacious winds. Wet storms coming in from the California coast sweep over the mountains and bring with it 80-100 mile per hour winds on the tops and 60-70 mile per hour winds in the valleys.

Time to go surfing!

When I was a teenager, if we timed it right and got up to the lake just when a storm was hitting, we could watch some of the Tahoe daredevils attempt to surf Big Blue. They were as far from Maui as you can get. Instead of balmy tropical breezes, the winter winds would blow sharp bits of snow in your face, and instead of board shorts, the surfers needed to wear 3 millimeter suits to protect their bodies from the 39 F degree water. But the gale force winds would kick up 3 to 5 foot waves that made for some excellent surfing.

One of the best places to surf the lake is at the North Shore near Incline Village or King’s Beach where there is more sand and less rocks. This video from GO211 shows us how it’s done.

Photo courtesy of [RickC/Flickr]

via Hang Ten at Tahoe | Lake Tahoe | NileGuide.

Aaron Labrano dropping in.

Here is the way to usher in a storm at Tahoe Nov. 20th. I went for a surf check at 8 am and was in the water by 9 am. Four other surfers joined me at this spot.  It was good for Tahoe and I came as close as I ever have in getting a barrel in fresh water.  When I was done I snapped a few pictures of Mike Vail who was still out.  These were not the biggest sets of the day but the average wave.

via TAHOE STORM RIDING!! – Tahoe, Teton Gravity Research Blog post.

Last Tuesday’s gale-force winds probably caused lots of cursing — especially among firefighters battling a wildfire near Reno — but one intrepid North Shore man seized the gusts for all they were worth.

Photographer and fine-art framer Jimmy Callian, 36, knew this was his chance to ride Lake Tahoe’s wild surf.

Say what?

That’s right. Callian, a longtime surfer who moved to Tahoe in 1999, saw the wind whipping up whitecaps on the lake and figured there “were waves somewhere on the lake.” After driving around to check out beaches, he found a spot “that looked fun.”

By “fun,” he meant 3- to 5-foot waves eerily resembling typical ocean swells. A gale-force wind and bone-chilling lake water only added to the challenge.

After his friend Meg Pugh arrived to take pictures, Callian grabbed his 5-foot, 10-inch Quad surfboard, donned his 5mm titanium-lined wetsuit, booties, gloves and hood, and slid from a rock into the frigid washing machine that the lake had become.

“I had to keep telling myself it was the lake,” Callian wrote in an e-mail last week. “I couldn’t believe it.”

After the first “freezing-cold” wave smacked him, Callian gradually acclimated to the conditions. “The funny part is, I thought it was going to be way colder,” he noted.

Callian ended up surfing for about four hours.

“I caught a lot of fun waves, and they were very well-shaped,” he wrote. “I got a few pretty long rides.”

via Winds allow surfer to ride Lake Tahoe | TahoeDailyTribune.com.

via Jimmy Callian surfing Lake Tahoe.

POSTED BY TANA

via My Bread and Switch Tail Butter: Lake Surfing!.