Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 18 M ISSOULA IS ROUTINELY RANKED AS ONE OF THE BEST RIVER TOWNS IN THE UNITED STATES. Kevin Brown, co-owner of Strongwater Surf Company, would like to see it ranked as one of the best surfing towns too. It may seem like a pipe dream to some, but Brown, known to most as "KB," has revolutionized the young sport of river surfing. Brown is one of few surfers who can say his riding began in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. As a child, he saw surfing for the first time on visits to his grandparents in Chula Vista, California. "I had al- ways been fascinated with boards: skateboarding, snowboarding when it first started, wakeboarding before it was even called that." Brown got a whitewater kayak in that sport's infancy and built a respectable resume, competing in U.S. Freestyle competitions. "I fell in love with the river, with the power of the water—whitewater kayaking was always surfing in the mountains to me, never kayaking." When, in 2008, the city of Missoula built Brennan's Wave, an engineered whitewater feature downtown next to Caras Park on the Clark Fork River, Brown found an inland outlet for surfboards. "e year Brennan's Wave was built, the high water made it hard for kayaking," he says. "So, a dozen of us brought out surfboards, and that was the start of surfing here." At the time, surfboards were simply a means of making the best of a blown-out wave. Says Brown, "When the water went down, we got out our kayaks—whichever was the best tool for the best wave. e more we fell in love with surfing, the more we started getting waves that maybe three or four years earlier, we wouldn't have looked at surfing. We started giving surfboards more of a chance: instead of just walking away from a wave, we'd just start grinding and grinding, trying to successfully ride it." en they started building surfboards specific for river waves. ose river waves aren't necessarily perfect for ocean boards, says Brown, but they are surfable with the right set-up. Not only the best tool for the job, but the simplest. "Surfing is so simple: all you need is a board and a wet suit," says Brown. Brown and his business partner opened Strongwater Montana Surf in downtown Missoula in 2008, bringing river surfing to the masses and surf culture to Montana. River surfers seek out recirculating waves, in which an obstruc- tion in the river causes the current to fold back on itself and flow upstream. ey can be man-made obstructions, such as Brennan's Wave on the Clark Fork River, or natural ones caused by the topography of the river bottom. Brown and others have pioneered about a dozen surf waves in the area, the best-known of which is Pipeline, a recirculating wave on the Lochsa River west of Lolo Pass that's bedazzled paddlers for decades. "River surfing is probably a lot like ocean surfing was when it started out," says Brown. "ere are no stigmas, no cliques—it's all camaraderie, everybody cheering each other on. Everybody falls down, everybody swims; the best person is not that much different from a first timer. Even if you're the best guy, at the end of your run you're going to fall down and swim to shore." by AARON THEISEN BROWN IS COMMITTED TO SEEING Missoula BEING A BONA FIDE SURF CITY, U.S.A., A BIT OF Malibu IN MONTANA. Shredding Brennan's Wave video by Scott Mathson www.distinctlymontana.com/surf182 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL

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