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Does this look like Hell to you? Photo: JP Van Swae
Contrary to popular belief, the gates to Hell are located in San Diego County. And sitting at the northwestern tip of the county, just beyond those menacing flaming gates, is Lower Trestles – a bastardized blue pit of despair. Because, for as much credit as Lowers gets for being the crown jewel of high-performance surfing in Southern California, to actually paddle out into the madness can feel like Dante traveling through all nine circles of Hell.
You know immediately upon arrival that a great evil lies beyond those elevated train tracks. The message “THE SURF IS GOOD, BUT THE CROWD ISN’T,” is scrawled on one of the paths towards the beach, essentially serving as surfing’s version of “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Trestles, for its many flaws, is upfront about how terrible it is from the very start, and I appreciate it when evil places are honest with me.
Highlights: La Bomba, Part 1: South of the Border
Showcasing series of solid south swells from Peru to Mexico
Tyler Warren, Puerto. Photo: Billy Watts
Marcus Sanders
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Last week, when we saw swaths of purple marching across the South Pacific, we got pretty excited, as we tend to do when we see that kind of stuff, and decided to call it the La Bomba swell. Turns out, maybe we should’ve gone a little more plural on the whole thing. Las Bombas, maybe. Especially for Central America and Mexico, which have basically been pumping nonstop for almost a week now. Some places have been better than others, of course, but there’s been no shortage of energy in the water South of the Border, as evidenced by the gallery below.