By Kitt Doucette

Wake surfing is no new phenomenon; Hawaii’s surfing pioneers rode wakes in Honolulu Harbor when the ocean relaxed. Some enterprising Texans have gained notoriety for riding the wakes—often several miles long—of giant oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico.

In central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley, longboard lake surfing can be traced back to two brothers and their dad’s 1964 Hansen longboard. Jim and John Grossman grew up traveling between Santa Monica’s sun-kissed beaches and Idaho’s whitewater rivers. Their father, Sam Grossman, was an early Malibu surfer and a lifelong Idaho kayaker who instilled his taste for nontraditional sports in both sons at an early age. In the early 1980s, Jim brought his father’s 1964 longboard to Idaho on a whim. Envisioning shredding for hours on never ending whitewater play waves, he strapped the Hansen onto his car roof and toured Idaho for a summer, surfing waves and turning heads on rivers like the Payette and Salmon.

Two decades later, Jim’s younger brother, John, was gearing up for his own kayak trip when he discovered the old board buried deep in the recesses of the family garage. The fiberglass was yellowing and the deck was covered in candle wax, but the old V-fin was still rock solid. He grabbed the board, and once again the relic toured Idaho’s back roads and rivers.

On the way home from one such trip, John Grossman stopped to meet his older brother at their family cabin on Pettit Lake. The brothers were swapping Idaho river surf stories when an idea took hold: riding the old board behind the ski boat, using its small wake to propel them. If it could be done in Texas, it could be done here. A gang hit the water to test the theory; the Sawtooth Surf Team was born.

Landlocked thrill seekers have been wake surfing for years, and these days many ride short, maneuverable boards behind boats equipped to amplify wake heights. But as that high-adrenaline brand of the sport spidered throughout America’s interior, the far-from-official Sawtooth Surf Team made longboard surfing a mainstay on central Idaho’s high alpine lakes.