""It was gnarly. Dangerous. Only the most experienced could surf it," says Jakob Netzer of what local surfers have come to call the "E1," an ever-churning wave along a mountain stream that flows through central Munich a swell that non-surfers and tourists know as the Eisbachwelle or "ice stream wave." "And it's very sad the wave is not working," says Netzer, staring at where the wave once regularly appeared, just below a bridge that marks the entrance to the city's English Garden."
""It's usually three sections," says Netzer, who has surfed the Eisbachwelle for years. The wave stretches across all three. "On the far side, you jump in and there are these bumps, and then in the middle, you have a nice, smoother place where you can surf, but it's not easy, because you have to anticipate the sections and know where to make the turns.""
The Eisbachwelle is an ever-churning urban river wave in Munich that typically reaches about 1.5 meters high. City engineers finished dredging the Eisbach canal and opened floodgates, after which the E1 wave transformed into a small whitewater bump along a raging waterway. Surfers describe the original wave as gnarly, dangerous, and surfable only by the most experienced. The wave formerly stretched across three sections with bumps and a smoother middle used for maneuvers. Jakob Netzer began surfing the wave at 17 and has surfed both E1 and the less challenging E2 regularly in all weather, wearing a full-body wetsuit.
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