The Road Glacier: Featuring Chris Christenson

“I designed the Road Glaciers to be used everywhere from checking the surf, fishing for tuna offshore, and riding moto up the 395, to exploring new terrain on my splitboard in the Sierras.”

- Chris Christenson



Born and raised in Southern California, Chris’ passion for surfing began at a young age. When Chris wasn’t surfing the local beach breaks between Seal Beach and Newport Beach, he was exploring the snow at his grandparents’ cabin in the San Bernardino mountains or was teeing up on the Long Beach Navy golf course. Growing up, Chris would often watch his next-door neighbor shape surfboards in his garage, but it wasn’t until Chris was 18 and on a golf/academic scholarship at Point Loma Nazarene University that he bought his first surfboard blank, borrowed his neighbor's tools, and shaped his first board – a moment that would forever propel him down a path of most resistance.

In 1992, Chris’ shaping career began with a six-year apprenticeship to shaping legend, Dick Brewer. It was perfecting the skill of shaping boards under Brewer, and the influence of his then neighbor, Skip Frye, that solidified Chris’ abilities to design and shape any size surfboard, which would later open the door to shaping big wave guns for the world’s best big wave surfers, including two-time world champion, Greg Long. A reputation for being a punk rock, forward thinker,^[1] with a connection to the past, Chris’ ability to craft diverse surfboards lead him to making big wave guns for good friend, and Todos Santos charger, Johnny Walla, and other heavy hitters like Brad Gerlach, Greg Long, Rusty Long, the Walsh brothers, Mark Healy, Danilo Couto, and Damien Hobgood. Chris is not only known for his ability to craft 10’ guns for big wave surfing’s elite, but for shaping some of the best long and short boards in the industry – for long boarders like Scotty Stopnik, Mitch Abshere, and filmmaker Mikey DeTemple, to short boarder Sterling Spencer.^[2]