10 minute read
Surfing Switzerland
No sea for miles, no coastline, no crashing waves... Yet this landlocked country offers surfing thrills – for those willing to seek them out
Wakesurfing, Swiss-style: Ueli Kestenholz, a bronze medal winner in snowboarding at the 1998 Winter Olympics, rides the bow wave of a pleasure boat on Lake Thun
B
ack in the summer of 1982, in the heart of the old Swiss city of Geneva, newspaper headlines criticised the disruption to local businesses caused by crowds gathering daily on the Pont de la Machine. The bridge was full of people looking down, their eyes fixed on the water in disbelief as a group of young surfers stood on boards, the tumultuous waters of Lake Geneva gushing into the Rhône beneath their feet. Gaël Vuillemin was one of them, then just 14 years old.
“Before our first attempt there, I had spent four weeks surfing in France,” says Vuillemin, now 54. “When I got home, I saw the bridge and thought maybe we could surf there, too.”
So they gave it a shot. They tied a water-ski rope to the bridge and used the handle at the other end to hoist themselves onto their boards. When they let go, they found themselves standing on a wave for a few seconds, like their idols in California. They were surfing. In landlocked Switzerland. “We were driven by our passion and just wanted to give it a go,” Vuillemin says. “We didn’t feel like pioneers.”
But they were. In a country without a single inch of coastline, they were some of the first surfers to not be defeated by that small detail. They sought out surf in a land of mountains. “I knew that surfing could become popular here,” Vuillemin says, “because many of the friends I’d introduced to the sport had got hooked.”
But even he couldn’t predict the recent rapid growth in Swiss surfing. Today, there are approximately 45,000 active surfers in Switzerland, according to estimates by the Swiss Surfing Association (SSA). Which is a surprising figure for a nation that’s a full day’s travel from the nearest coastline with decent waves. In fact, the number of surfers per capita in Switzerland is as high as in France, a country known for its legendary surf spots along the Atlantic. Now, many Swiss surfers are realising they don’t even have to go elsewhere to indulge their passion, thanks to their homeland’s 165,000km of rivers and more than 1,500 lakes. Like Vuillemin and his crew in their day, surfers are finding unlikely surf spots in Switzerland.
“Surfing in Switzerland is multi-faceted and there’s a lot of fun to be had,” says photographer Dom Daher who, alongside surfers Esteban Caballero and Valentin Milius and journalist Patricia Oudit, has spent the last two years criss-crossing the country in search of its best surf spots, for the web series Landlocked – Swiss Surfing. They’ve met dedicated surfers on never-ending river waves, seen intrepid board-riders on the icy waters of Lake Neuchâtel, and visited a giant wave pool in Valais that could radically transform surfing in Switzerland.
There’s no shortage of potential. In recent decades, Swiss surfers have discovered several new river waves, like those in Bern, Basel and Thun. But being at the right place at the right time to surf can take dedication. Matthias Niederer runs a video production company in the canton of Thurgau, in the northeast of the country, and has been surfing with a crew of friends on the river Thur for almost 18 years. River waves are dependent on rainfall or snow melt to sufficiently raise the water levels so surfing is possible, and the Thur needs to reach flood levels to ensure a great wave. Even then, conditions are only optimal for a few hours; once rain or snow starts falling, Niederer must watch water levels on local farming websites for several hours and factor in detailed seasonal information, such as snow melt or soil saturation, to calculate the level with a high degree of accuracy. Then he knows when to jump in the van and go. “It helps that I’m selfemployed now,” Niederer says. “But me and my whole surf crew, we always tried to make sure we had some flexibility [so we could surf]. Most of the time, we had easy-going bosses who said, ‘We know you’re a bit crazy. When it rains, we’ll allow you to follow your passion.’”
The Thur spot he heads to may only be surfable two to three times per year but, for Niederer, even clean, reliable, artificial waves like those at the Wavegarden facility in Valais don’t compare. “You can’t really plan river surfing,” he says. “You just have to wait. So there’s also always this element of adventure. It never gets boring, because you can’t get enough – there are so few opportunities to go in and surf. There can be a lot of driftwood once you get to flood levels, so the risk is a bit higher than some other places, and you need to be safe. But the surf is much more rewarding [than at other river-surfing spots]; the wave is at head height, which is huge for a river wave. It’s just you and your friends, no one else. It’s indescribable.”
One of the more reliable spots in the country is the river wave at Bremgarten, around 15km west of Zurich.
Riding the crest of success: Vincent Schneider, men‘s winner of the 2021 Swiss Wavepool Championship, surfs the river in Bremgarten
The art of watercraft: board-shaper and surfer Valentin Milius from Choëx, western Switzerland, built his first board before he’d learned to surf
The conditions are usually perfect in the spring and early summer when melting snow raises the level of the river Reuss, creating a much more consistent endless wave. By the early 1970s, surfers had started testing their skills on this wave, and today Bremgarten is one of the bestknown and most popular surfing spots in Switzerland. Surfers dive into the dark green water from the small island in the middle of the Reuss, hoist themselves onto their boards, and surf for as long as they can manage. It doesn’t matter whether they’re young or old, beginners or experts, river-wave specialists or ocean veterans.
“The most impressive thing there is you really feel like you’re surfing,” says Caballero who, in Landlocked, regularly gets out his board to test his country’s waves. “We park the car, put on a wetsuit, get on the board and we’re off. It’s like a little surfing trip. We forget the stress of the week, and for a while we have the sensation of being upright on our boards. Then we go back to the campsite, have a barbecue and chill out with friends.”
Then there’s the less sociable option of hunting down waves on one of Switzerland’s many lakes – and it’s not for the faint-hearted. Greg Williams, a Lausanne surfer and co-founder of the Association Romande de Surf – a group for French speakers – and board makers Ho! Surfcrafts, was inspired to surf by his father’s experiences in Devon and Cornwall in the ’70s. In February 2014, he surfed what may have been the highest waves ever on a Swiss lake, at Villette on Lake Geneva. On what has become known simply as Big Thursday, with the wind blowing at speeds of up to 150kph as Cyclone Tini approached Switzerland, Williams took to the lake on a board he’d made himself from Swiss fir.
“The waves must have been one and a half metres in height, and you could only surf for a few seconds,” says Williams in Landlocked, “but my God, what a unique feeling to surf on the lake!”Waves as high as that don’t appear every day – maybe as few as 10 days per year are even surfable. But for those willing to wait, it is possible to surf spots like Lake Geneva and Lake Neuchâtel without the aid of a cyclone. Caballero surfed Lake Neuchâtel during shooting for Landlocked: “It was incredibly cold and the waves were tiny, but we could still surf!”
So, what inspires this passion for a pastime that shouldn’t be possible? “On the one hand, Switzerland is a nation of sliding sports,” says Benedek Sarkany, 42,
Esteban Caballero, surfer “The range of options here is amazing”
Dom Daher, photographer
Urban legend: Esteban Caballero does loops of Lake Neuchâtel during shooting for Landlocked
Natural talent: surfing instructor Fabienne Sutter poses with her board for The Red Bulletin. In the background is the Dents du Midi mountain range. And a cow named Caipirinha (don‘t ask)
president of the SSA and coach of the National Talents and Elite Teams. “From an early age, we’re put on skis or a snowboard and taught how to go downhill. It’s only a short step from skiing and snowboarding to surfing. Plus, we like to travel. There are many who learn to surf abroad and want to continue when they come home. This is how they come across Bremgarten and all the other options.”
Sarkany spends a lot of his time in his caravan at Bremgarten and has seen something on the banks of the Reuss in recent years that’s backed up by figures from the SSA: the number of Swiss surfers is growing fast. In the past eight years, the association estimates, the surfing population of Switzerland has increased by around 20,000. This is perhaps, in part, down to the first pools with artificial static waves, such as the Urbansurf outdoor centre in the heart of Zurich or the Oana Citywave indoor complex in the town of Ebikon. And if you head a little further south, you’ll find the Wavegarden facility in Alaïa Bay, nestled at the foot of the Swiss Alps in Sion, Valais. Here, at the first surf pool in continental Europe, it’s possible to ride a sea-style running wave 500m above sea level, in an open-air area the size of a football pitch. The facility, which can provide 1,000 waves every hour, comes with the latest Wavegarden tech, including a movable air section. Swiss surfers see this as a game changer.
“Ever since this resort opened, I’ve felt that we really can surf in Switzerland,” says Fabienne Sutter, 31, a member of the National Talents Team who comes from the canton of Schwyz. Sutter has become something of a benchmark in Swiss surfing, having skied from childhood, before moving onto skateboarding and then surfing at the age of 18 on the Atlantic coast.
Today, she spends most of the year in Ferrol, a coastal village in northern Spain, working as a surfing instructor. Sutter has tried her hand at river waves and wave hunting on Swiss lakes, but it’s Alaïa Bay that has really piqued her interest. She visited shortly after the facility opened in 2019. “You can spend so much time on the wave that you genuinely improve. It’s certainly not the same as surfing out at sea, which is the only place you can feel the true surfing spirit. But it’s perfect if you want to work on specific things, because of all that time you can spend on the wave. And because our coach can take us out, give us advice and get us straight back out there to practise.”
Coach Sarkany believes Alaïa Bay could spark a ‘mini-revolution’. “Now, you can surf in Switzerland from the age of eight, in a safe environment, with waves perfectly adapted to everyone’s abilities,” he says. “This will raise the overall level of surfing in Switzerland.”
And maybe one day it will even give the nation its first surfing star. That’s how Daher sees it. The photographer believes that, in the not-too-distant future, Olympic surfing competitions might no longer be held at sea, but in pools like Alaïa Bay. “Roger Federer became who he is thanks to our fantastic tennis courts,” says Daher, “so why shouldn’t we have the next Kelly Slater thanks to our fantastic surfing facilities?” All the episodes of Landlocked – Swiss Surfing are available to watch on YouTube; youtube.com
