Santa Cruz legend, now resident of the far north, Josh Mulcoy has done it right. Photo: Nate Lawrence//Mulcoy Travel
How far would you go to score flawless, crowd-free waves?
Before you answer, a few conditions: What if the air was zero-degrees Fahrenheit, water 35, wind 40 knots, swell 20 feet, and it was snowing?
Typically, any of the above factors by themselves would return a “no thanks” from most surfers. For Josh Mulcoy, such numbers form the code to a combination lock that allows him access to something he treasures: solitary surfing.
“That’s my passion,” Mulcoy told me. “After my family, my wife and kids, it’s what makes me happy. Always has.”
Of course, surfers pushing into tundra territory to find empty waves is hardly news these days. By now flags have been planted in many places north and south of the 71st parallel. What is unique is the winding backroad, blocked in places by snow drifts, that Mulcoy has traveled to reach his ultimate destinations.
Mulcoy is a product of the 1980s pro surfer baby boom in Santa Cruz, California, and a contemporary of the likes of Peter Mel, Chris Gallagher, Adam Replogle, etc.
A friend and early travel partner, Replogle remembers the young Josh as competitive, but not a contest guy. “It wasn’t his thing, but get him in some waves he really cares about and you’ll see how competitive he is.”
Though comps were counter to Josh’s aesthetic early on, his laser layback snap and fin-flinging blow-tails raised eyebrows on the former Bud Pro Tour and earned him a finals day appearance against World Champion Barton Lynch at the 1989 Cold Water Classic at Steamer Lane. But his mind was always elsewhere. Another world away, in fact.
“It’s a family tradition: hollow waves with no one around,” says Mulcoy’s longtime friend, surf photographer and filmmaker Patrick Trefz. “He got it from his dad.”
Mulcoy’s father “Harbor” Bill Mulcoy holds down legend status for his deep-barrel riding in Santa Cruz, Mexico, and Hawaii, throughout the 1970s and eighties. Long before Josh went to Alaska, the two of them trawled the craggy coasts of Oregon, Washington, and Canada for desolate surf amid Ansel Adams scenery.
“Josh is like a wild animal,” Trefz says. “He needs to be surrounded by nature and solitude.”
“The cliffs and rocks and all the trees, they’re a comfort to me,” Mulcoy says. “It’s where I find peace of mind.”
Around eight years ago, after countless surf trips to Canada solace seeking with local legend Raph Bruhwiler, Josh married a local girl and left Santa Cruz permanently to live in Tofino on Vancouver Island. It’s the perfect launching point for any man willing to endure Everest-level suffering to avoid the crush of civilization and widen the boundaries of the known surfing world.
The first score was on a SURFER magazine trip to the Yakutat Peninsula in Alaska with Dave Parmenter and the late Brock Little in 1993. The resulting cover shot of Mulcoy surfing against a staggering background of the snow-caked Alaska Range was a shot seen ‘round the world but it didn’t exactly start a revolution. Too damn cold, the surf world said collectively.
Josh’s major sponsor was also unmoved. Even with the SURFER cover, they cut him from the team upon his return. Telling the story for the film, Within Reach by Mike Cochran, Mulcoy recalls, “They said, ‘Josh, what you do is unmarketable. Going to these places where it’s cold and there is nobody around. People don’t care about that.’”
For most pros, suddenly being left sponsor-less in your mid-30s would have been the kiss of death. But then people did start caring! More scores by Josh and others after they kept pushing finally offered rabid consumers of surf content a fresh visual, and a new angle on tired tropical surf-trip narratives. It was man versus nature, not a nature made for man. And Mulcoy experienced a phenomenon even more rare than a repeat score at a remote Alaskan sandbar: the pro surfing second act.
In 2004, a new sponsor hopped on board – Vans signed him for precisely the thing that got him dumped before. He is still with them today.
Consumers of surf media lapped up content from Mulcoy’s many return trips to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Of SURFER magazine’s 20 Best Surf Photos in 2019, Josh is in two of them. The magazine spreads and films featured gorgeous, powder-filled panoramas with just Mulcoy and friends shredding enviable waves a 1,000 miles from the nearest surf school.
Mulcoy’s most recent foray beyond the edges of all existing charts was to an island in the Bering Sea. The expedition, with Noah “Waggy” Wegrich and Pete Devries, is featured in the film Island X, by Ben Weiland (Arc of Aleutia, The Cradle of Storms, Under An Arctic Sky), that is currently touring North America. Not only was it the first mission to the area, it was also the hardest documented score to date that far north.
“I was blown away by what we stumbled upon,” Mulcoy said. “It’s one thing to go up there and get fun waves, but to get barreled in the Bering Sea? That was insane.”
Before you go booking a flight, consider a few of the less fun aspects of their trip: Weather grounded them in Anchorage for a week. When they finally got off the ground the windshield on their plane froze and the pilot couldn’t see so they had to turn back. Snow closed roads. And they had to wear snowboarding outerwear to check the surf.
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“It was miserable,” Mulcoy says. “Definitely as cold as I’ve ever been. I wore a face mask the last two days. I thought it was going to drown me.”
Such is the penance of extreme solitude seekers.
“This is what people don’t understand,” Mulcoy says. “They see the photos and video and think it’s good all the time. But it’s so fickle. The good windows are very few and far between.”
“I’m blown away by his ability to find and experience these places that make him happy,” Replogle says. “Because what he does is really hard.”
When asked to count how many legit epic days he has actually scored in his over three decades of trekking north?
“About 10,” he says. “But all of the days you get skunked just make the good days more special.”
There is a cachet that comes with scoring consistently in the ficklest surf zones in the world. Mulcoy boasts a healthy social media following. And he has parlayed his reputation into auxiliary revenue streams, including a surf resort in Salina Cruz, Mexico (Las Palmeras) and a travel agency (Mulcoy Travel). He guides some of the cold-zone trips he books himself.
The rest of his days are spent playing with his groms, exploring the West Coast of Canada by boat and keeping an eye on conditions in Alaska in anticipation of the next discovery. With the exception of warm air and water, Josh Mulcoy seems to have it all.
So maybe I asked the wrong question in the beginning. Maybe it’s not about how far you would go for solitary perfection, but how far the search will take you.
Josh Mulcoy’s new film, Island X, debuts Sunday, April 14 at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz, Calif. and online September 6. Find more tour stops here.
