Surfing
Surfing
How one of California's most celebrated waves disappeared from the map
In the first episode of Made In Central California, filmmaker Graham Nash reintroduces us to Ghost Tree, which was once a jewel of big wave surfing, but today is a distant memory.
6 min
Made In Central California Episode 1
How did one of the world's most sought-after big waves disappear from the map?
In the mid-2000s, as tow surfing was reaching its zenith, a little-known and rather hideous wave on the Central California coast surfaced on the pages of surf magazines. Taken by the bone-white trunks of the gnarled cyprus trees that stitched the nearby cliffs of Pescadero Point, a select cadre of hardy big wave surfers named the wave Ghost Tree.
For a few years, it seemed certain that Ghost Tree had sealed its place in the pantheon of legendary big waves, alongside places like Waimea, Mavericks and Jaws. But, as California filmmaker Graham Nash reveals in our latest three-part Made In series, Ghost Tree's fate was far from set in stone.
Beginning with former pro surfers Peter Mel and Adam Replogle, who can be credited with popularising Ghost Tree – but not discovering it, an honor that goes to a core group of locals led by Peter Davi – Nash traces the rise and swift fall of a wave that was once the darling of big wave surfers, surf media and even the mainstream media.
Carlos Burle, during an early test run at Ghost Tree
© Nate Lawrence
Tyler Smith negotiates the kelp forest at Ghost Tree
© Nate Lawrence
Alex Gray and Kalani Chapman, in between tows at Ghost Tree
© Nate Lawrence
Alistair Craft leaning in at Ghost Tree
© Nate Lawrence
In Chapter 1, we relive, through Mel and Replogle's recollections, the first days of towing at Ghost Tree and then the halcyon days that followed. But the story is much more than one of the demise of a wave – it's a story of tow surfing as a whole and about how, despite all its flaws and dangers, without it big wave surfers would never have returned to paddling into big waves under the strength of their own bodies.
