On Memorial Day, some of us go to barbecues, others enjoy a good surf or a couple a beers. Kai Lenny? To celebrate the holiday, according to his Instagram account, he packed his foil board to central Idaho and surfed a wave on the Lochsa River, known locally as “Pipeline.”
There’s no video floating around the interwebs–only these Insty nuggets from Lenny: “There is such a huge potential for Hydrofoil surfing in rivers,” he wrote on his account. “The standing waves that you just can’t quite surf for their lack of steepness will be perfect for it. After my first experience doing it, I’m amped to come back with a modified design and see where I can take it!”
Surfers have long plied the waters of the Lochsa River and the 30-foot wide wave just over Lolo Pass inside the Idaho border with Montana. Most surfers jump onto their boards prone, ferry into the wave and then quickly pop up as the wave steepens. Strongwater, a Missoula-based company, has literally created a cottage board-shaping industry thanks in part to this wave.
Lenny seems intent on pushing foil surfing wherever he can (no word on kickback from Naish, kid is seriously hooking up his main sponsor). He’s now surfed a foil in some form across all the main Hawaiian channels, at Fiji’s Cloudbreak, at Sunset on Oahu and seemingly wherever he travels. River surfing fired up the young Hawaiian more than usual: “It feels as though you’re going so fast but when you look to both sides of the river, everything is stationary. Never felt that much speed in my life without actually moving forward! Can’t wait to do more of it.”
We’ll post video as it becomes available.
