Why Gerry Lopez Traded Pipeline For Fresh Powder

If there’s one great thing about Occy’s (kinda) awkward dive into the world of podcasting (which is to say: interviewing), it’s the screw-foot powerhouse’s ability to get literally anyone in front of a microphone and pry their world wide open.

Most episodes require us to wade through Occy getting caught up on basic biographical facts, but occasionally yield great stories, while Occ’s odd question often reveal more about Occy’s ambivalence about other pro surfer’s lives, than the lives of the pro surfers he’s interviewing.

Anyhow, today’s Occ-cast delivered an unmissable parcel of surf wisdom. A feature-length interview with Gerry Lopez, the King of Pipeline, with surfing’s most recognisable frontside scoop and accompanying moustache (RIP!).

The pair perched up on the shores of the arena that made him famous, recounting Pipe’s earliest days, when 8ft boards first shot down it’s heaving face, the evolution of board design and the seedlings of what would be surfing’s World Tour.

Gerry confesses his love for Australian surf trips, despite the quality shock experience when trading Hawaiian towers for two foot beachbreaks. 

“At home we wouldn’t consider going surfing on a day like this,” he recounted during one less than thrilling visit to Monavale. “We were spoilt, we were always surfing good waves.”

Occy probes Gerry on his more recent affection to carving mountains of snow. He’s even named a bunch of wave-like powdered sections after iconic waves. He even hosts an event back home around Oregon, where they’re building ‘waves’ out of snow, judging boarder’s performance similar to surfing.

He’s still linked in with the surf world however, judging the annual Wave Of The Winter, reviewing countless entries and assisting in deciding on who wore the North Shore best each season.

Lastly and more importantly, Mark and Gerry explore the reasons why the world’s most stylish man on a single fin has packed up and left the wondrous shores of Pipeline so many years ago.