These Lakes are making me Ache

[ill-advised strategy]

It's so cold in the D.

[basinbeater]

wim hoff method?

[Dantheman]

Respect. Love the colors in the first shot.

[Soups]

That. Is. Awesome.

[hawkgt]

Nice, make the news again?

[mcski]

That is the most impressive ice beard I've ever seen.

[simple]

So rad

[Dantheman]

That is the most impressive ice beard I've ever seen.

Dude looks like Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean.

[Dave Minion]

breaks giving you aches? that's a whole new tread!

[Stu Gotz]

Given that one might live near a good Great Lakes surfing locale, how often is it “surfable?”

[ill-advised strategy]

Given that one might live near a good Great Lakes surfing locale, how often is it “surfable?”

It’s really inconsistent in most places, but if you have time and money to drive you can find waves regionally most weeks of the year.

Within a short distance of Marquette I probably get about 30 surfs a year. Many of those are sub par go-outs just to stay in touch with the whole thing and not be starting from scratch when it does get better

[neufox47]

Dude. That ice beard. Mad props.

[berko]

Dude. That ice beard. Mad props.

That is arguably the most impressive thing Ive ever seen posted here. I dont surf, but if surfing is so epic that you are willing to endure that, I guess I need to look into it.

Or avoid it like fentanyl.

[DBdude]

the first pic is a really nice wave

it looks like a steep beach

[ill-advised strategy]

That's another person. So...you know....it's still cool but don't compliment me specifically.

He did a much larger ice beard photo once, but said it got dangerous with that big and heavy of a lever on his jaw...which is something you don't really think about.



I tend to kind of knock the ice off as it accrues....and I'm not a big photo-taker when it's cold like that. I'm just in and out, on a mission, I don't fuck around waiting for my suit zippers to freeze and my hands to claw-up so I can't get in the truck....it starts to not be so fun (for me) when it's that cold. Dan doesn't have a regular job, so these really-attention-getting photos of wintery surfing have (I speculate) provided some level of income-generating opportunities for him.

I was just making funny rhyming threads and needed cold surfing photos....there aren't many photos of me surfing. The lakes do make me ache though. Too cold, too onshore, too smashy.

Last two times out the last few weeks, both times I've had to activate "OK, don't panic" mode psychologically, as I'm getting worked by 32 degree water. One, I broke a leash and had to do a long swim in a situation where I had gone for "one more" when I was probably too cold and better judgment would have had me heading home. I had numb hands and didn't make a wave and fuck me, board's gone and I'm getting washed around in these 20 wave sets 6 seconds apart. I'd always feared having to do a long swim when it's that cold, but it was fine.

The other day, trying to paddle out in "victory at sea" conditions, I didn't make the outside and got turned back by intense smashing twice, and the flushing was really, really cold, and one beating was one of those doubles where it picks you up and throws you a second time and I hadn't really taken a good breath beforehand, I had anticipated being able to get over the top of that one....I was having trouble seeing for a bit. Coughing, can't see...."OK, don't panic, settle down" . It's kind of neat to use that circuit, I haven't used it a lot since being in really smokey or firey situations in wildland firefighting. Whatevs. It's stupid, I'd rather be skiing. could have surfed yesterday but hiked up a tiny stupid hill and snowboarded with my little dog Zudnicking behind me instead. That's about how much fun winter surfing is (for me)....it makes good pictures and lets Dan live free and enjoy some local fame, so that's good.

Having read an exhaustive biography of Miki Dora, I was shocked at the similarities with him and Dan. I admire him so much, and also kind of despise him. Running into him prompts a disorienting mixture of excitement and trepidation. He can be exceptionally welcoming, and terrifyingly hostile. People are like "you have to be crazy to do that"....which is both true and completely false, because there are many reasonable citizens out there too, but Dan is, just, off....He's off. Like many mentally-ill people, I've caught glimpses of him where it seems like it may be an act, and that he may just be playing with us all, and I've also seen him in manic states, and heard delusional ranting and whatnot. It's a complex picture. He's making life work on his terms, and I'm happy for him in that regard. I find myself sometimes so jealous when I'm at work and I know he's just out there doing Dan stuff....college girls, growing weed, finding all the surf, playing with dogs....It's also always a hustle though, always hustling....trailer park drama, watching out for the police, driving without a license, court dates, lawyers, feuding with people. I don't know, nobody knows.
If I run into a surfer in town, and we have nothing to talk about, we can talk about Dan for a half hour. It's really something. I hardly even know what to write here...he's an epic character. He has a kind of purity I'll never approach, he is surfing. He's an inconsistent, mercurial, volatile mix of triumph and violence. You approach him the same way you approach surfing itself: you watch for a bit first, you pick your spots, you don't go in if it's not the right day, you enjoy the hell out of time with him if it is the right day...I'm careful where I park because I don't want surge washing over my truck, or Dan getting upset about taking his parking spot. The sea is angry and deadly, then it’s gently hosting toddlers at the beach. I feel like if you're upsetting Dan, you're probably doing something insulting to the spirit of surfing itself....sometimes when he goes bananas on somebody, the other locals are kind of torn, because we know he's right, but we don't want the drama, but the drama is kind of an authentic surfing thing, which we lack for here...so there's that....but we just want everyone to get along. Nobody else is going to look at the lineup of 50 people at a place nobody was supposed to know about and respond by parking his van in a way that nobody can walk past it without squeezing between it and the bushes, then scream at everyone "DON'T TOUCH MY VAN, GO BACK TO CHICAGO"....it's like, lol...man...at the same time you feel for those guys coming from out of town having to deal with The Madman...but at the same time still, fuck you for bringing your 30 friends to our little hole in the wall. It's exactly the same way you feel when you see somebody getting smoked by a wave....you feel bad, but there's a hooligan, punk sense of schadenfreude amusement at their destruction.
Dan has that purity. He's all in.

Here's the upside....this is Dan at his best, which is very awesome.

[TBS]

It's so cold in the D.

Ms TBS response - “ I bet he’s not married”

[danmelon]

Damn dude, thx for sharing that perspective. Heavy stuff

[reckless toboggan]

It's so cold in the D.

I'm surprised your D didn't freeze off.

Somebody grab him some clippers,
His fuckin beard is weird.

[Dantheman]

Damn dude, thx for sharing that perspective. Heavy stuff

x2

[berko]

Thx for the vid.

I have great respect for a soul's sovereign right to be as idiosyncratic as they need to be.