Winters on the North Shore can be hectic for reasons most of us don’t often consider. Yes, there is a flood of everyday tourists and visiting surfers alike. Lineups are packed. Kam Highway can be bumper to bumper at any given moment on any given day. Those are the obvious things. Now throw in a handful of contest windows and things start to feel hectic.
This is a taste of what Nathan Florence lays out for a random day on the North Shore this past winter after getting up at dawn to surf Pipe with his brothers, John John and Ivan. For context, this particular day was during the window for the Backdoor Shootout in January — a window of time that saw consistently flawless Pipe, the Eddie almost getting called on, an insane day at Jaws when the Eddie was then called off, and then the Eddie finally getting the green light about a week later. The all-digital Vans Triple Crown of Surfing ran for three weeks during this exact same run, as well.
“We woulda scored regardless, had the Shootout run,” Nathan says after a marathon session with his brothers at Backdoor. “The Shootout could’ve maybe run but I guess it was a hard call in the morning…we all went out and scored anyway. On top of that, they called the Eddie off for what was supposed to be tomorrow. And now we’re looking at going to Jaws tomorrow. So I have all my boards loaded and we’re gonna go find the rest of my guns, pack up, possibly leave this afternoon to Jaws, surf Jaws all day tomorrow, cruise, surf again the next morning, fly back to Oahu, and then the shootout runs the next three days…”
To throw a cap on it all, he had to make sure the clips from this session at Pipe and Backdoor were uploaded for any Triple Crown entires because of a rule that all waves must be submitted for the event the day they’re ridden.
Mellow winter…
