Finding the perfect glassy wave

The water on Monday afternoon was icy — early season flows are just beginning to rise from snow melt coming down off the mountains. A line of wetsuit-clad river surfers, part of the newly formed Gunnison Waves group, created a loose and jolly line between two bushes slightly upstream of second wave at the Gunnison River Whitewater Park. More surfers came down the path from the parking lot, high fiving and hugging as they joined the line. 

One at a time, each surfer pushed out and let the current pull them down into the pocket of the wave. Almost everyone managed to stay in the wave while prone on their boards, but standing was another challenge. Only a few seemed to really have mastered the move. Bo Thomsen, who introduced himself as “Two-thirds of Bob” with a big mischievous grin, was by the far the most accomplished river surfer — so comfortable in the swirl of bubbling water that he curved and played from side to side, exploring every part of the glassy face of the wave. 

Thomsen said he came by his love for river surfing mostly by circumstance. As a Gunnison native, he grew up kayaking, but he came from a family of surfers, he said. Family vacations to the warm, salty version of the sport meant he learned it growing up.

“I think 14 years ago now, 2007, I started bringing the kayak and surfboard. And then over time, well, the kayak didn't really show up anymore,” he said, laughing.

Jason Lakey and Andy Sovick officially started Gunnison Waves. Like Thomsen, Lakey got to know the sport through other parts of the whitewater community. 

“I was just on a raft with a couple of friends,” he said. “We got out of the takeout, and I looked down and saw these guys in the water and came down and started watching them. Alaine Boscaro was there and he had a holey wetsuit and a boogie board and said ‘go jump in’. And I’ve been hooked ever since”

Lakey and Sovick were working as carpenters together at the time.

“He was just obsessed,” said Sovick. “He would show up late to work and take long lunch breaks and he's like, you gotta go, man, you gotta come.”

In the years since, Sovick has moved on to publishing, and Lakey started his own carpentry business, the name of which, Second Wave Renovations, proudly proclaims his extracurricular passion.

They say the park took a hit during the darker days of the pandemic. 

“It was really during COVID, that year, when all of a sudden, things were shut down, and everyone was understaffed, there was actually no one coming down here. This place got pretty overgrown and there was some shady action happening down here,” Sovick said.

The two started Gunnison Waves last year to organize not just surfing, but caretaking. 

“It’s a way to unite all of the river surfers and the river surfing community, kayakers included,” Lakey said. “A lot of us had been coming down and cleaning up the park on our own. We just wanted to get everybody together to just say, hey, let's do a spring cleanup, let's do a fall cleanup.”

Now the group is on a new mission: advocating for a renovation of the waves. The Gunnison River Whitewater Park was built almost 20 years ago, in 2003, and some of the underwater concrete structures that create the waves are worn from years of exposure to river flows. The group is worried a big water year could damage or destroy the structures, possibly creating a safety hazard.

During the Gunnison River Festival this summer, on Sunday, June 12, the group will hold a fundraiser for wave improvements. It will double as a way to grow the sport with a surf jam contest and a women’s intro class, among other events. 

(Jacob Spetzler can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or jacob@gunnisontimes.com.)