Many of my adventures take me to the
mountains and forests in the interior
Pacific Northwest, but the Oregon Coast's
beauty is undeniable.
So when the opportunity to try surfing came up, I decided to give it a shot.
We're going to go surfing, and it's pretty
darn cold.
I headed out from Portland to the
coastal city of Seaside. I've never been
on a surfboard or been out past the
break, but I am an avid snowboarder and I
know how to wakeboard, so I thought I
might be able to get the hang of it.
That said, I wasn't about to jump in without a bit of instruction. So I met up with Lauren Ahlgren,
a surf instructor based in Seaside.
So we're gonna get suited up and head to Shorty's, sound good?
Let's do it do it. Let's do it.
I'll bring you...I'll bring you nines if you want to
get started there's dressing rooms right
on the inside pass the fins.
Be right back.
So you're just gonna caravan — I've
got the boards in my rig and you can
just follow me. Sound good?
Sweet, yeah. Easy enough. Awesome. Let's do it.
"Shorty's," as its known, sits a half mile off the
highway about 18 miles south of Seaside.
We hiked in, carrying our boards through
a spectacular forest. It's easy to see
why this place is so popular.
It's amazing, it's an oxygen machine.
Looks great.
Ah, this is gonna be so fun.
The beach sits in a stunning cove framed by volcanic basalt and sandstone cliffs.
There's a lot of places you can surf on the Oregon coast
but this is for some reason the most
popular to kind of come down to.
But it's also a real predictable
beach so it's really safe, this is like
where and I started surfing this is kind
of where I went by myself.
Great.
What do you do when you get in a
rip and you don't want to be in one?
You can't really fight it right? So, you're
either my guess would be just ride it?
But if you ever get in one and you're,
you're like I don't want to be on the
outside, just remember the strongest
current on this shoreline is the waves.
So swim parallel, get back into those
waves and ride those waves back in.
We're gonna learn how to ride a wave
today and the biggest thing that you have to
want out of this — you have to have
awareness and surfing like any outdoor
sport. I can't teach you awareness, you
have to want it.
Okay, so this thing right here is what we call a stringer kind of...think of tightrope or slackline.
Yeah, same thing it's like you
want to be really balanced on it so when
you're paddling, you're paddling right
next to the rails. I don't want to see
windmills, I don't want to see lily dips, I wanna see like you're paddling,
like you want it.
Yeah.
Okay, so notice how I quick popped up, the wave just pushed me,
my feet are a little bit wider than my
shoulders, my, my feet, my hips and my
shoulders are all stacked up on top of each other, hands right here, make sure that
arm doesn't go around like that.
Uh, huh.
Make sure it goes underneath. Remember I'm looking  at the board right here.
I'm right here, paddle, paddle.
Yeah, that looks good. I'm gonna get my suit on.
After Lauren's onshore lesson,
we finished suiting up and waded into
the surf.
I gotta say, I was both excited and
intimidated while paddling out and
feeling the power of the waves for the
first time, but Lauren helped me out and
to my surprise, I was able to catch waves
right away — kind of.
Riding whitewater closer to shore was
easy enough, but it was more difficult to
get up on the waves themselves.
I caught one or two, for short rides at
least, and I reveled in the chance to see
the coast from a new angle.
After a few hours in the water, I was
pretty tired and ready to call it a day,
so we headed back to the car.
I think everything went great. I mean as long as you had fun, then that's winning for me.
Well, good stuff. Thank you very much for
the lesson today, it was a lot of fun.
Thanks for coming out and playing in the water.
We had so much fun, I did. I would love to be back.
It's easy to do when you have the element of the ocean. She's great.
Love it.
Let's keep her clean. No more plastic.
Yes, let's do it.
Okay, I gotta get going.
And while I don't exactly need any new outdoor hobbies, I think I'll give surfing another shot sometime.
At the very least, I have an even greater
appreciation for the beautiful Oregon Coast.
Hey there folks, I'm Jim Ryan. Thanks so much for watching
our latest episode of Peak Northwest. We
love hearing your feedback and if you
feel so inclined, drop me a note and let
me know what you think of the series so
far and where you think we should go in
the future.
Thanks again for watching and we'll see you soon.
