For anyone who visited downtown Salida this summer, it was hard to miss a giant crowd of people surrounding the brand new Scout Wave. Surfers and bystanders alike lined the sides of the river, either waiting in line for their turn to surf or watching those already on the wave. The manufactured feature gained attention from big names within the surfing community, including Jamie O’brien, surfing legend and winner of Pipeline Masters. It’s clear that this wave is drawing in surfers from across the country. This is the first wave of its kind as it is the first green wave.
The goal of the wave in town is to be an excellent surfing wave, but also have the wave be simple enough that it requires little maintenance and works well for most water levels. When rafts float through the whitewater park during levels of high water, the wave has a tendency to flip or trap rafts in the hydraulics behind it. This has worried members of the rafting community, and they have spoken out against the feature. Harvey stated his position on these concerns, and what actions he’s taking to address them.
“When the water got high the wave – some things happened that we didn’t anticipate. We have a project underway to address that this winter, try to make some improvements. […] I personally swam it over 30 times [at high water] just to understand how potentially hazardous it was so that I could give good advice to the State Parks and the City of Salida about mitigating concerns,” he said.
The river and the wave itself is extremely important to the community, and these improvements set a standard for whitewater parks across the country. Harvey says that the wave ranks highly on a national, possibly even global level.
“I think it’s one of the best river waves, and some people say it’s the best. It’s certainly one of the best river surfing waves in the country right now. It’s brought a lot of people, I think that you know, I’ve been involved in whitewater paddling for 30 years and I’ve never seen any phase of anything in whitewater that’s ever approached the amount of interest there is in river surfing,” Harvey said.
There wasn’t a day this summer without a large group of people surfing the wave, from five in the morning to ten at night. It’s clear that river surfing is here to stay in Salida, and the new wave is bringing people in from all over. With experts calling it one of the best waves in the country, and plans for improvements already in place, it’s clear to see the impact this sport will have on Salida.
