When most folks think of California, they think of crowds. They think of waves like Lowers, Rincon and Malibu being shoulder-to-shoulder with an amount of people so dense that it defies both logic and imagination. They think it’s impossible to escape this, so you might as well just grab a burrito and burn someone.

But, there is a trick to scoring empty waves in California. It’s called: the automobile.

If ever you want to escape the madness of CA’s premier spots, just find four wheels, point that compass north and hard-nose the highway. Central and Northern California are stacked with waves. And they ain’t stacked with crew trying to ride them.

Jesse Mendes, who is currently ranked 1st on the QS, recently proved this to be true. Watch him tear through empty Californian bliss, right here.