The Great American Surf Desert

In the 1800s the High Plains of North America was known to the English-speaking world as The Great American Desert. In that context, “desert” just meant “barren wasteland” rather than our current usage as the place where you find hippie communes, artists, golf courses, festivals, or aliens.

Even so, in the modern world the Plains has become a Surf Desert. Kind of like those Food Deserts, but with… surf. And Surf really can be What You Make It with today’s technology and construction capabilities. Surf wave pools are planned, or have been built, all over the country. Except the Plains.

The map below, produced by wavepoolmag.com, illustrates The Great American Surf Desert well. It shows the locations of existing and planned projects to bring surf to wave-starved landlocked markets:

Astute observers will note the giant gap in the middle of the map. And in case you didn’t, we drew a big red shape on it with stellar graphics. The map appears not to count standing wave technologies, like FlowRider systems, or river waves, but we will cover those in more detail in future publications and posts.

It’s high time that someone with a philanthropic outlook, and maybe 80-90 million dollars, brought surf to the surfless on the American Ghost Coast. If that’s you, we can match any funds put toward such a project up to the amount of about $47.00. We’ll need a receipt for tax purposes though.