The Line of the Week
North Lake Tahoe
Surf Tahoe
With the November weather changing on a daily basis from sun to wind to rain to snow it’s hard to pin yourself down in Tahoe and choose an activity. The snow falls so you dust off your skis and try to make some turns. The sun will blaze, the rocks will melt off and you go climbing. Your bike is still sitting by the door so why not take a drive to Auburn and keep the season alive? Then you find yourself in one of those in between days. The clouds are filling the skies, the wind picks up but it’s not cold enough to be a couch day. There is just enough snow on the ground to void out any land activities. Then you look out on the lake.
The winds are blowing sustained at 20-25 mph and my phone begins to vibrate. I see the name Brennan on my phone and instantly know it’s time to go out and do something interesting. Any reader of Unofficial knows that Brennan Lagasse gets after it with an exclamation point. So when he calls me on a week day I know right away he’s not interested in chatting about the Penn State scandal or the new drapes he and his wife just got for their new place. He wants to get rowdy.
When we arrived in Incline the waves were actually pumping for Tahoe standards. The winds were howling as a few kite boarders tried their best to hang on in gusts of 55 mph. Brennan and fellow surfers Pete and Ita Kostan hit the water. It was pretty awesome to see Lake Tahoe raging like it was. The seasoned surfers were getting smacked around as the unsettled waves crashed on them as they paddled out. From my vantage point there seemed to be tons of ridable waves. As Brennan said, “More often than not when you’re surfing Lake Tahoe you’re usually hoping that there’s enough juice in the water to paddle into and slide down a legit wave. Once in a while a wind event hits that makes most of the regular wind advisory’s pale in comparison. This was one of those events-it wasn’t a matter of if you’d catch a wave, but more a matter of how many you’d get and which ones would line up to give you the best ride.”
Within minutes Brennan and Pete were up and riding the Tahoe swells to the shore. For a few hours Lake Tahoe looked like the ocean. The temperatures began to drop as Brennan and Pete exited the water looking legitimately tired. By the time we got home the winds had subsided and the waves dissipated. The moral of this story… There’s always something to do in Tahoe.
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Ryan Salm Photography.com
The Line of the Week is a weekly photo piece by Ryan Salm featuring some of Tahoe’s finest athletes doing whatever we deem rad. We will be using the term “Line” loosely to describe anything resembling chutes, big airs, pointers or any general madness. All images are the property and copyright of Ryan Salm Photography. All images are only to be used in conjunction with the Line of the Week. Any other usage must be cleared in writing by Ryan Salm.
