It’s a straight forward enough question, right? A gigantic glacier collapses before you. The water is frigid, but the waves, well, there are seriously waves. You just so happen to have a 5/4 hoodie and booties. And a surfboard. So would you surf these gigantic rollers formed by a collapsing glacier in Chile? You can see waves form in both the bottom and top of the screen as the water approaches the rock wall. And the film is shot from fairly far off so it’s tough to tell how big those faces are.
Speaking of the film, it was posted to the Licet Studios YouTube page about three weeks ago and has racked up mucho views – in the neighborhood of eight million. That’s because it’s strangely satisfying to watch. According to Licet, this is the Grey Glacier in Patagonia, at the very southern tip of Chile. Pieces of ice 100 feet high apparently break away from the glacier.
And there’s a lot more in the name of hazards than just riding in frigid water. “The sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier or iceberg often causes large waves around the area and can result in a ‘shooter,’ which is a large chunk of the submerged portion of the iceberg surfacing above the water,” Licet wrote. So there’s that too. Certainly a lot to navigate for an empty lineup.
