Heroes and Ghosts: Pebble Beach Danger Wave Comes Alive

Collins wanted to drive right up onto the beach and rush his injured partner to the hospital, but Allport didn’t want to get thrashed in the shorebreak without packing his leg first. Luckily, Auspet Jordan, a local surfer on hand, had a backboard stretcher in his minivan and rushed up to get it. Jordan brought it out, helped bring Allport in and then drove him to the hospital.

Tyler Smith, handling it all, despite the unknowns. Tony Harrington

As Jordan drove Allport up the hill to the hospital, Collins plucked Noah Johnson out of Stillwater Cove and drove the Hawaiian hellman out to eventually catch the wave of the day, a monster that rational men are calling 60-plus feet.

Yet Ghost Tree wasn’t finished wreaking havoc. Later that afternoon, Russell Smith towed his brother into a monster. Unaware of the prodigious beating he was about to take, Tyler styled straight down the thing’s massive face. The crowd assembled on the adjacent cliff, however, moaned and yelled in horror as Ghost Tree dropped a 50-foot axe on the elder Smith.

Without hesitation, Russell raced into the impact zone but couldn’t reach him before the next wall of whitewater blew him off the ski and sent him into the water alongside his injured brother, who had torn a rotator cuff in the wipeout. Fortunately for both of them, Kelly Sorensen was on hand to save both brothers and keep their ski from being destroyed.

Nonetheless, the day’s events not only underscored the potential for disaster at Ghost Tree, but provided more fuel for critics of tow-surfing at the infamous spot. While environmentalists like the Bluewater Network’s Sean Smith feel tow-surfing should be banned throughout the Sanctuary, including Ghost Tree, many local surfers like Auspet Jordan are deeply frustrated by the attention heaped upon the spot in recent years.

Although the process may prove to be a long one, all signs point toward a probable ban on PWCs at Ghost Tree within the next few years—a fact which, while pleasing both environmentalists and most Monterey County surfers, will relegate days like the March 9th session to the realm of bygone legend.