People love to talk about the “California Double,” as if the Golden State is the only place on Earth where both snowboarding (or skiing) and surfing exist within the same time zone, let alone a reasonable drive. There are plenty of places where the surf-and-snowboard-in-the-same-day gauntlet can be run and the group of people who pulled it off for Arctic Roses did so in a location far, far colder than California’s sunny beaches: Norway.
Here, the mountains literally drop off into the sea and the task of getting a few waves requires gloves, a hood, and neoprene thick enough that you need an entirely new depth of motivation just to get suited up. If the waves themselves don’t give that motivation it’s fair to say the scenic backdrops alone are worth the experience of jumping into the sea. And once they’ve crossed that off the list, the team spends the rest of their day riding — splitboarding and making turns, an impromptu quarterpipe session, whatever they can find to have a little bit of fun and enjoy being outside. After all, that’s all the California Double is really about anyway. Only this version is a tad bit colder.
