Paul Primus, chief wave technician at the Boise Whitewater Park, helped test the newly engineered waves on the Des Moines River during a trial run Thursday. (Photo: ICON Water Trails)
By Michael Morain
Get ready to shred, bruh. The swell is pumping.
And soon, dear Iowan readers, we’ll need to learn some surfing lingo. On Thursday a team of surfing engineers — or engineering surfers, it’s hard to say — got their first chance to ride the waves on the Des Moines River just east of downtown’s Scott Avenue bridge. After many months designing and building the ICON Water Trails site now called Principal Point, they finally got a chance to try it out.
“This is the best part of our job, getting away from our computer screens,” said Sam Swanson, a design engineer for Merrick Whitewater. He lives in White Salmon, Washington, where he often gets out on the Columbia River. To test the Des Moines, he brought his own kayak and bought another from CrawDaddy Outdoors in Ames.
The team tested both surfing and kayaking now that the so-called “waveshaper” has been fully installed on the river floor. It’s essentially a giant plate that a remote operator can tilt up or down to affect the waves, both for surfers and kayakers a little farther downstream.
So far, so good. “The wave hole was big enough to throw tricks and come off the waves as we wanted to,” Swanson said of the initial trial. “It was steep enough to stay in it for awhile, but not so retentive that you can’t get out.”
Computer-assisted models can predict a lot. But as you might expect, on-site testing is essential.
“When you look at the water, how glassy is it? Is it frothy? Or foamy? Some of it is visual, but you have to get the feel of it,” said Stephanie Oppel, ICON’s executive director. “You have to jump in and swim up to it. How hard is it to paddle into the wave? When you fall or jump off, what does it feel like? Is the wave washing you out right away or hanging onto you?”
Oppel herself is not a surfer (yet) — “a boogie board is about my speed,” she said — but has immersed herself in the sport’s culture during the project’s evolution.
Such a culture now thrives in Boise, Idaho, after the city built a big wave of its own in 2012. Leaders initially built it to attract kayakers, but it quickly caught on with surfers, whose entry-level gear is much cheaper. The city adjusts the wave to accommodate both groups and posts the schedule online and on social media. (Note to KCCI: Maybe it’s time to re-light the old signal tower. “Weather Beacon green, frothy paddling is foreseen. Weather beacon red: surfers, prepare to shred.”)
Surf shops and cafes popped up along the Boise River, and property values have surged like its now-famous wave.
Could all that happen in Des Moines? Who knows? But last week marked a milestone in the ICON Water Trails evolution.
Oppel said it’s been fun to see reality start to resemble the renderings. “Oh my gosh, it looks like the picture!” she said. “We’re doing what we said we’d do.”
Paul Primus, left, and Sam Swanson tested the Des Moines River waves on Aug. 6. (Photo: Merrick & Co.)
Here’s what to expect in the next weeks and months:
August and September: The team from Merrick and the Iowa DNR will continue to conduct surfing and paddling trials at Principal Point to test how the waves feel at different water levels. Last week, the river flowed between 2,100 and 2,500 CFS or cubic feet per second. (For reference, 1 cubic foot is “about the size of a basketball,” Swanson said.) The waveshaper is designed to accommodate flows between 1,500 and 10,000 CFS during the main recreation season from May through September.
On the south bank, work crews will continue to develop terraces, landscaping and a lighted sculpture. The construction site and whitewater area remain closed to the public.
Spring 2027: Principal Point will open to the public.
North of downtown, crews at Birdland Park and Marina will complete several projects, including a new public boat launch near Second Avenue and a higher, dryer new route for the riverside Neal Smith Trail. Crews will also complete a new synthetic ice rink, event lawn and playground. Read more in Monday’s story from the Business Record.
Spring 2028: The Hubbell Trailhead will open at Fleur Drive. Like the bunny hill at a ski resort, this is designed to help beginning paddlers and surfers get their feet wet, so to speak.
Further out: Planning continues for a whitewater site at Center Street, where the dam under the Iowa Women of Achievement Bridge will be replaced with four smaller drops that open up the river for surfers, rafters and kayakers. ICON director Oppel said work here will begin after construction winds down at Principal Point and the Hubbell Trailhead.
