In the Cradle of Storms

Our plane had stopped in a small Alaskan fishing port, en route to a remote island in the Aleutian archipelago. Alex Gray, Pete Devries, Josh Mulcoy, Chris Burkard, and I knew very little about our destination, but were eager to discover new waves and learn about a coastline devoid of surf cams and reports. We weren’t asking for much—only for the weather to cooperate. But we already had other problems.

“Where is our food?” Chris yelled over the sound of propellers. We stood on wet tarmac and stared into the cargo hold of our prop plane, the whole thing no bigger than a school bus. Boardbags filled the fuselage, padded by heavy-weather armor—waterproof backpacks, 6mm wetsuits, rain suits, goggles, gloves, and gum boots. It was all there, except our food, which was nowhere to be seen.

Only eight people lived on the island we were headed to, so our crew would almost double the population. It would have been more than rude of us to show up without bringing anything to eat. There was no gas station, no police station, no cellular reception, no supermarket, no school, no hospital, and not a single paved road. Our visit required a permit, and the few weeks before winter was the only time we could get one.

As we headed toward the airline’s office to resolve the food situation, Alex meandered around the complex. He spotted a blinking “OPEN” sign hanging in one of the windows and remembered someone telling him that the bars here were for drinking and fighting. The town was an outpost for dangerous jobs and fast cash.

He opened the door and stares from the patrons landed on him like fists. Trying to look at ease, he took a seat between two fishermen, one broad and scowling, the other tired-looking and unshaven. He ordered a beer and asked the men if they lived on the island.

“Hell no,” one of them scoffed. “I’m just here to fish.”

“I’m here to surf,” Alex declared.

The man’s eyes grew wide.

“Good luck,” he said.

Just as the beer arrived, Chris appeared in the doorway and waved Alex over. It was already time to leave.

As we hurriedly squeezed into the plane, Chris explained that the cargo company hadn’t loaded half of our food, and that they would try to fly it out at a later date. They just couldn’t say exactly when that would be.

The pilot sealed the hatch behind us. He took a seat up front and began flicking switches and turning dials. As the propellers began to turn, he leaned over his armrest and looked back at us. “You’ll wanna tighten your seat belts,” he said. “It’s the only thing that’ll keep you in your seat. The winds are up…and uh…we’re gonna experience some negative G’s.”

The propeller’s pitch climbed to a scream and we were up in the air again, streaking through fjords and passing waterfalls that plunged hundreds of feet into the ocean. The plane shuddered, then dropped, then scooped back up, and repeated the sequence. Suddenly, a new island appeared through the cockpit window, a dark wedge that rose into the clouds.

The Aleutian Islands have been called “The Cradle of Storms” and “The Birthplace of the Winds,” but in the wintertime, to those who think about them at all, they’re simply a weather-beaten hellhole. Comprised of a string of more than 167 islands, the archipelago divides the North Pacific from the Bering Sea, and spans the entire gap between Alaska and Russia. The place is remote, even by Alaskan standards. It belongs to the Alaskan Bush: territory that’s neither connected to the North American road network nor serviced by the Alaskan ferry routes.

Winter in the Aleutians produces some of the most severe storms on Earth. A clash of arctic and tropical air, known as the Aleutian Low, pushes cyclones to maximum intensity. The islands endure relentless hammering from wind and rain. The fabled swells that thunder out of the region deliver waves to the North Shore and Mavericks, more than 2,000 miles away. Once we’d arrived at the source, the reality of getting caught in one of those storms was terrifying.

As we circled one of the distant islands in the Aleutian chain, I saw a dirt runway up ahead. Below us the landscape was treeless, drab brown, with white waves surging against black cliffs. A cluster of buildings huddled in the center of a large swath of land. They looked vulnerable and exposed.

The plane banked into a descent and the ground came up fast. After the dust settled, I heard engines rumbling outside, wheels crunching on gravel, talking and shouting. The hatch dropped and I squinted into a flood of daylight. A pack of hunters stood by the side of the runway looking ready to board the plane. As we descended the ladder, two quads shuttled stacks of reindeer antlers to the plane’s cargo compartment. A group of men dropped our luggage to the ground and loaded the hunting trophies.

A man with a trim, gray beard emerged from the bustle. He had a short, solid build and wore hunting camo from head to toe. He introduced himself as Scott, our guide and host at the lodge where we would be staying.

“You the beach boys?” he asked. “Let’s take your bags down to my place and I’ll show you the 4-wheelers. I’m sure you’ll wanna get going with the weather so nice. It’s been raining non-stop for a month.”

He ushered us into a utility vehicle and took us along a gravel road that curved down from the runway. We passed through the huddled village and continued up to a gray hunting lodge overlooking a lake. The journey didn’t even cover a mile.

Scott walked toward a cluster of quads, which would be our main form of transportation. “There’s no roads down to the ocean,” he said. “And it’s real easy to get stuck, so be careful.” He shot a suspicious glance at Alex. “And it’s easy to roll them too. Sometimes you’re lucky to get away with a few bruises. Other times you break your neck.”

We unloaded our gear, fueled the quads, warmed the engines, and strapped our boards to the back with bungees. Two tracks led to the coast: a clearly defined route heading left and a ragged, treacherous track to the right. Scott recommended we go left. “There’s a bay down there,” he said. “I think you’ll find that the waves roll in pretty nice.”

We blazed across the tundra. Frost adorned brown grasses in delicate silver. Mud traps obstructed the route. Reindeer skulls, spinal columns, and antlers poked out of the ground. Alex led our convoy, gunning around the obstacles, anxious to reach the sea.

We crested a hill and were treated to a view of the Alaskan wilderness. A spectacular volcano pierced the sky, capped in snow like a wedge of powdered sugar. A herd of reindeer clung to the slope, nosing through the grasses in search of food. Below, a barren tundra rolled toward a bay that cut into the island. Smoking mountains hunched on the horizon beneath a cold, blue sky. Inside the bay, gothic cliffs dropped down into the sea, then extended into broad, flat reefs just below the water’s surface. White lines collected neatly around them. It was a nice moment, but even on our first day, we knew it couldn’t last. A storm would hit soon, so savage it would max out the swell chart and color the entire map of the Bering Sea purple.

Across the bay, Pete spotted a wave. We parked the quads under a cliff and Pete, Josh, and Alex paddled out. It was a short, technical ride: a fast drop behind the peak followed by a quick bottom turn into the barrel as the wave cleaved over a shallow rock. They rotated through the lineup until the sun disappeared.

The following day, the sky stayed clear as we explored other breaks in the bay. We had prepared ourselves for the worst, yet by some divine favor we had found a gap in the storm chain. After two days, our surf expectations had already been met and exceeded.

As we drove back to the village that night, clouds stacked in the sky like a dam holding back a flood. The wall grew taller, its shadow crawling across the island. Alex arrived at the lodge and unstrapped his boards, wondering whether he’d have another chance to use them. He turned his eyes to the wall in the sky and considered opting for the next flight to civilization. That idea was quickly squashed 10 minutes later when the rain began to pound against the windows. There would be no escape.

Countless far-flung cold-water expeditions have met their demise in horrendous weather. The trips themselves are a reaction to crowds, an attempt to find solitude. As crowds have swelled, surfers have been forced to go to greater lengths to find the type of space that was once just a short car-ride up the coast. The results have been mixed at best. Sure, the locations are breathtaking, but you don’t surf locations. As a result, those who prize high-octane rides have dismissed these obscure far-flung trips as novelty—sightseeing rather than surf travel.

Pete can relate. He’d been to this island once before, six years earlier. He had surfed only once, a windy, small day. Eleven years prior to that, in 1997, another group of surfers had visited the island. A crew of seven, led by Steve Hawk and Mark “Doc” Renneker, had come across the same bay. They had surfed the short right slab, and had also seen potential in a left further down the beach, but the trip was remembered most for the extreme conditions. Now we understood why.

The storm started as a breeze that moved across the grass like a curtain. Soon the wind flared across lake surfaces, blotting them dark blue. The day wore on and the storm strengthened. Wind whistled through the tin edges of our roof and a ghostly drone possessed the lodge. The grass whipped violently back and forth. Rain slammed the windows from every direction. Streams of water poured from gutters like waterfalls. Trapped inside, we sat close to the glass and peered out, mesmerized by the forces on display.

Then the weather changed its attitude, as if it had grown tired of the fickle, spastic tantrum. It directed all of its fury into a continuous horizontal blast of rain and hail. The ghostly frequency dropped to a deep rumble that shook the entire lodge. It seemed to emanate from the foundations of the Earth. The grass bowed down, flattening against the ground. Waves formed on the lake and surged up the banks. The windows began to pulsate, on the verge of shattering.

Two days later, towering clouds crossed the sky like a time-lapse. With the storm passed, we were eager to find more waves. We sat around the kitchen table, eating granola bars and recounting stories from the right we had surfed on the first day. The surfers went on to discuss the finer points of tube-riding technique, an unusual conversation for an Alaskan surf trip. Suddenly a loud buzz sounded over the roof. Through the window we saw a small helicopter heading in the direction of the village. We put on our rain and mud gear, jumped on our quads, and headed toward town.

The village was quiet and empty. Small, wooden houses mingled with all kinds of exotic weather installations: radio antennas, satellite dishes, towers, rods, cones, cubes, spheres, geodesic domes—the kind of stuff you’d find on a moon base. Still searching for the helicopter, we headed over to check in with our guide.

Scott had moved to the island from the Lower 48 more than 20 years ago and had married a local. Early on, he had worked as a fisherman and also guided climbing expeditions to many of the surrounding volcanoes. We weren’t sure what had brought him to such an isolated place, but it was clear that he was in his element. He rarely visited mainland Alaska, preferring the wilder wilderness of the Aleutians.

I knocked on his door, but found no answer. I opened it and peeked into a mudroom. Racks of camo jackets, pants, and boots lined both walls, a sort of Bat Cave for Aleutian hunters. I brushed past the gear and cracked the door that lead into the inner room of the house. Inside I could see someone, but it wasn’t Scott. The man was dressed in black and wore fashionable, thick-rimmed glasses, which framed a weathered face. He sat at the kitchen table, eating something that looked like a soggy piece of coal.

Scott appeared around the corner and introduced us to Julian. He’d flown in on the helicopter from a private cattle ranch on the other side of the island. He was a photographer from New York City, who lived here part of the year, herding cattle and documenting life in the Aleutians. He said living on a remote island balanced the congestion of the city.

Scott shoved a plate of the soggy black meat into our hands. Julian was eating an oily slab of it, with an equal-sized chunk of blubber attached, an amber colored jelly. It was seal meat, Scott said, and they had killed it that morning. He warned it was an acquired taste.

“It’s an insult if you don’t eat it all,” he said with a grin.

“You cook it with the blubber to keep it moist,” Julian explained. “Around here, nothing edible is wasted.” He sliced off a glob and slapped it down as I forced a smile. If our food didn’t arrive soon, we’d be eating this stuff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We followed a set of mud grooves the color of dark chocolate. Puddles pooled in the parallel gutters—rain had washed grime into them from the surrounding hills. Our wheels crashed through them, scattering thick, cold mud in every direction. Strands and fans of it spattered off our tires, spraying into the sky, filling the air with a constellation of dirt and debris. Our treads spun relentlessly, seeking something solid to grab onto in the congealing goo, plastering our pure white boards in mud.

We drove as fast as the track would allow, riding with intensity. I kept my thumb firmly on the throttle, my spine absorbing every jolt. My brain rattled inside my skull with each strike—I wondered whether it too would turn to mud.

A left spun into the bay below. Naturally, there was no one around. We darted down the dunes and across the beach. Another set loaded out the back and peeled down the reef. Alex already had his board in hand, but there is no easy way to wax a board covered in a layer of mud.

Eventually he waded over a flat, kelp-covered shelf and made it into the lineup along with Josh and Pete. The takeoff spot was waist-deep, and as waves drew water from the reef, it only got shallower. They took off behind the peak and immediately grabbed rail as they slid into the tube, traveling nearly 200 yards down the line. They made it look easy, but afterward the dings and dents on their boards showed the signs of an unforgiving reef.

Just then, something pricked my face like a needle. I looked up and saw a wall of clouds looming again, this time loaded with hail. Pete, Josh, Alex, and Chris ignited their quads in a flurry, and blazed off. My bike, on the other hand, wasn’t cooperating—just a dead click when I pressed the start button. I looked up and everyone was gone. I couldn’t even hear their engines anymore. I tried all the tricks Scott had taught us to start the quad, but to no avail. I was on my own, without transportation. I contemplated abandoning the vehicle to hike back.

Wind hissed through the grass and the dark wall of clouds grew taller. Would I survive a hike through the storm? How long would it take to get back? Where would I find shelter? I noticed the presence of the bones again. They littered the ground all around me, their bleached shapes poking from the earth like tombstones. It was all coming together, the storm, the exposed hills, the dead animals.

Then I remembered the cabin. We had come across it while scouting the coast. It had thin walls and a stove, and we had spent the afternoon in it to pass the time—but I wasn’t sure if it could hold up in the storm. The walls inside were marked by hunters who, in years past, had also used it for refuge. They had drawn pictures and scrawled entire poems on the plywood. One primitive mural showed a gigantic wave at the foot of a volcano. The note next to it read, “3-11-11. Watched tide go in and out like a river, 4 times in 1 hr. Japan earthquake yesterday.”

It’s hard to believe, but the few Aleut people that live on the island trace their history back 8,000 years. Only two generations ago, some were still wearing waterproof clothing made from animal intestines and were hunting with harpoons. Excavations in the ’90s uncovered ancient caves that the Aleuts had converted into tombs for their mummified family members. In one such cave, the mummies hung from the ceiling by a rope. The sight startled researchers when they first entered the cave because it looked as if someone were standing in the middle of the chamber and had been for centuries.

During winter, flames knit islander’s lives together. In the restricted space of their subterranean huts, they would huddle around a fire, eat together, and tell stories that reaffirmed their long history. The hunting lodge, by comparison, was a mere blip in time, built less than 10 years ago, back when reindeer were introduced to the island and hunters from around the world began flocking to the lodge every year, obtaining a permit and paying lofty prices to take home a massive antler rack.

I wondered how the native Aleuts would have survived out in the open. What secret knowledge did they possess? I decided I would count to 15, then try one more time to start the quad. If that didn’t work, I���d start walking. I rocked the bike back and forth violently, turned the key a few times, then slowly counted down. This time, when I punched the ignition, the quad roared to life.

“So what does a professional hunter do?” Pete asked. “Just kill something bigger than most people?”

The plane had come and our food had finally arrived. Boxes of spinach, milk, orange juice, broccoli, eggs, and bacon sat piled in the kitchen. Scott had brought a bottle of whiskey, a rare treasure on the island. His friend Danny Boy came along too. We sat in the living room with our feet kicked up on chairs.

“Yeah, they try to shoot something bigger…and rarer,” Alex said. “Basically the same thing professional surfers do with waves.”

Scott pulled a topographic map out of a drawer and we huddled around. Danny Boy filled our glasses with another round. He was a native Aleut who worked as a guide for visiting hunters. He belonged to a group of 150 people in the island chain who still spoke the Aleut language fluently. Hunting and fishing still provides their food. Whenever he leaves town, he always takes his shotgun and rifle with him, ready to shoot a passing goose, duck, or seal. In traditional fashion he takes the meat to the elders in the village before distributing it to the rest of the community. He and Scott hadn’t eaten store-bought meat for as long as they could remember.

“We should check out that other bay,” Pete said. He pointed to a spot at the end of the treacherous trail we had avoided the first day. “It looks a little more exposed to swell.”

“The waves come in a lot bigger over there,” Scott warned.

“How do we get there? That track looks sketchy,” Alex said.

Pete had bogged down in a ditch on an excursion the day before, and Alex had tipped his quad over trying to pull him out with a rope. The accident nearly crushed Alex and his boards. It was a near miss that had rattled us.

“Never doubt yourself,” Danny Boy advised. “You can figure it out somehow—that’s what I believe.” It was a useful piece of advice, I thought, coming from someone whose people had survived in this brutal environment for 8,000 years.

The track was severe. Razor wire and sheets of rusted metal threatened our tires. On the hills, deep mud troughs ran down the center of the path, while in the flats the trail disappeared into marshland.

The new bay felt more exposed than the other. Whale vertebrae the size of airplane propellers littered the beach. At the far corner, a headland leaned over the water like the prow of a ship. In its shadow, a serrated reef jutted 600 yards out to sea, partially covered by the tide. As we drew closer, a massive wall of whitewater plowed across it. We jumped off our bikes and hiked a hill that skirted the cliff. From up high we could tell that the wave didn’t just surge—a huge section drained and spit. It looked deadly, not surfable. No one had ever ridden it.

Another wave blew its guts out. Alex ran down to his quad, ripped his wetsuit out of his backpack, and began changing.

The wave barreled on a slab as dry as a sidewalk. Pete and Josh observed its habits from the hillside as Alex paddled out and roamed the lineup. We hoped it wouldn’t end in catastrophe, since a rescue would require paddling to the end of the reef to retrieve him, riding back along the bumpy track, searching for a phone in the village, and calling for a helicopter to evacuate him.

Flurries of rain and hail swirled across the water. A set wave grew on the rock. Alex swung around at the last minute, paddled furiously, then dropped down the face. He turned at the bottom, set his rail, then stood straight up as the wave drew off the slab. It transformed into a cave as it drained water from the shelf, turning the bottom into an open grave. Alex stood calm in the green glow of the chamber. As he passed through the final section, spit blasted him onto the shoulder.

Pete and Josh suited up and trekked across the reef. Pete dropped in late on his first one. He stuck the drop, and as the lip collapsed over him, the wave warped over the slab and exploded. His board shot out in two pieces—the consequences couldn’t have been displayed more clearly. He popped up just as the next wave detonated in front of him.

Meanwhile, Josh waited patiently for the right set. His reward came in the form of a perfect, dry barrel that traveled the entire length of the reef. He flew out into the channel.

Pete returned to the lineup a while later. He disappeared into another tube through the back door—a heaving section—and this time emerged in a cloud of spray. After a few hours Josh and Pete came in, but Alex stayed out, shivering his way through cavernous barrels. Though he had never felt colder, he had the lineup to himself and couldn’t bring himself to paddle in. He shot out of barrel after barrel. As the day went on, he came out of more than 35 tubes. The session had entered the realm of absurdity.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone get that barreled in cold water,” Pete marveled.

The storm on the horizon brought another round of hail. Alex’s arms nearly froze as they dug through the water. Ice needles poured down but he stayed out. The rest of us shivered on our bikes with our jackets zipped and hoods pulled tight, ready to head back to the lodge as soon as Alex stepped back onto land.

His face was as pale as a ghost when he eventually came up the beach. His whole body shook but he didn’t bother to change. Instead he threw his jacket on over his wetsuit, strapped his board onto the back of his quad, pulled the choke, hit the start button, shifted into gear, and took off down the track, content that what he’d just surfed offered something more than just isolation.

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