Biggest Wave Ever Surfed

The Cradle of Storms — Part 1
Words and Film Ben Weiland // DP Chris Burkard
Edited by Bryce Lowe-White

Our convoy followed a narrow, rutted track as it snaked through the grass. The path thinned at the top of the ridge and then vanished altogether. Below, a barren tundra rolled toward a bay that cut into the island. Smoking mountains hunched on the horizon beneath a sky, cold and blue. It was a nice moment, but even on our first day, we knew it couldn’t last. A storm would hit soon, so savage that it would max out the swell chart and color the entire map of the Bering Sea purple.
That morning, our plane had stopped in a small Alaskan fishing port. Alex Gray, Pete Devries, Josh Mulcoy, Chris Burkard, and I were headed to a remote island located in the Aleutian archipelago. We knew very little about the place but were eager to discover new waves, and to learn a coastline without the aid 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 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, 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.

It was already time to leave. As the five of us squeezed into the plane, Chris explained that the cargo company hadn’t loaded half of our food onto the plane, and that they would try to fly it out on a later date, but 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 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 my eyes adjusted to a flood of daylight. A pack of hunters stood by the side of the runway looking ready to board the plane. 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.

We unloaded our gear, fueled the bikes, 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.”
Our bikes 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 another 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. 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.
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 sky stayed clear the next day and we surfed 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.

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