Mick Fanning and Mason Ho teamed up recently and embarked on a transformational surf trip to the mesmerizing, wild, and vast icy paradise that is Alaska. The following short film documents the duo SUPing through ice fields towards marginally surfable waves made by melting glaciers, enduring ice cream headaches so bad they ended sessions, and surfing a couple really nice looking point breaks with snow capped mountains in the background.
For someone who grew up in a set of conditions that starkly contrasts what Alaska offers (the Gold Coast of Australia is crowded, warm, and paved over by surf industry), Fanning has become curiously passionate about the extreme setting. At one point in the film he paused to reflect, “I was just so in awe of the earth… Mother nature really put on a show.”
Since the trip with Rip Curl Search, Fanning has taken his admiration for the area a step further and become an active force in the effort to conserve it. By joining forces, as an ambassador, with Wild Ark, an organization that works to preserve prominent wilderness locations, Fanning pushed well beyond the simple act of admiring the scenery and into the type of active engagement necessary to protect it.
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