Hold onto your shorts, Scottsdale. Monsoon Park is coming. Photo: Monsoonlagoonaz.com
You may remember a certain surfing movie called North Shore. Of all the surfing movies, North Shore sits at the top of the list — or at least very close to it — for must-watch surfing movies. Along with Big Wednesday and Point Break, North Shore is just about perfect. It features, as you know, a guy named Rick Kane, who wins a surf contest in a wave pool in Tempe, Arizona, takes his $500 prize check and belt buckle, and heads to the North Shore. It is there, in the span of a few short months, that he becomes not only a soul surfer respected by The Hui and a bearded Gerry Lopez, but a Pipeline champion, beating the likes of one Burkard You Bastard, aka Laird Hamilton. Well, Arizona is getting another wave pool, and if we’re exceedingly lucky, Rick Kane’s story will play out in real life. Monsoon Park is coming to Scottsdale, hopefully in 2021.
Yes, Tempe’s wave pool, Big Surf, is still around. But the world of wave pools has changed since the late ’60s when Big Surf opened its doors. Now we’ve got all sorts of options, from American Wave Machines to Wavegarden to the Surf Ranch. When it comes to technology that’s winning (so much winning! you’ll be tired of winning!) in terms of feasible operations, look no further than Wavegarden. The Cove technology is popping up in parks all over the place, and the newest announcement is an 11-acre park in Scottsdale, Arizona. According to the website, it can generate 1,000 waves per hour and hold up to 90-100 surfers at any given time. Which might SOUND crowded… because it is.
As is the case with most of these wave pool ventures, Monsoon Park isn’t just going to be a wave pool. It seems that there’s a chance making decent coin off a wave pool alone is difficult, so URBNSURF in Scottsdale will have running, biking, and fitness trails, outdoor volleyball courts, a putting green, a gym, and perhaps most importantly, cornhole tournaments.
So for all you land-locked surfers in Arizona watching North Shore on loop and dreaming of waves, fret not: you could be the next Rick Kane.
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