Surf Park Book: Preview #2 - Palm Springs Surf Club
They said Palm Springs would be weird and it didn't disappoint. The California desert is at once a hotspot for surfers, a haven for the elderly, and a sight for sore eyes.
The greatest desire of a surfer is perfect waves and no one else around. The surf park industry has the first half of that equation dialed but, of course, wherever there are fun waves, there will be tons of people lining up to ride them and even more gathered to watch. Those people can truly make or break the experience of a surf session. Surf parks recognize that the formula for epic surf sessions in a wave pool depends not just on technology, but also on the social interactions both inside and outside of the pool. On the quiet, early afternoon of a random Tuesday in March, Palm Springs Surf Club had aced it.
The City
It was my first time visiting a surf park after nine months obsessing over them and I couldn’t anticipate how I would feel. As I drove across a flat, dry, dusty valley, I was met with vast mountain vistas that I could barely make out. It was like watching the sun set—it’s almost too much for your eyes to take in but you still understand how beautiful it is. I passed the only major shopping plaza around for miles, a few old country restaurants, and the largest American flag I have ever seen which rivaled the sizes of the one story neighborhood houses. Finally, I rolled up to the Palm Springs Surf Club (PSSC) and saw a wide, palm tree lined oasis that looked like it had been airlifted from the coast of Orange County, California, and plopped in the desert. The entire scene had me feeling mystified but the comments from people I talked to before my trip started to make sense. They said Palm Springs was “weird”. And it was. But good weird.
Coachella Valley, also called Greater Palm Springs, is commonly known for its beautiful weather, hot springs, golf courses, and spas. These features attract around 14M visitors annually but the surf park only has around 1.6M residents living within an hour’s drive. The valley is also known as a retirement haven having one of the largest concentrations of senior citizens in California. In Riverside County where PSSC is located, almost half of the population is 65 or older. Despite these demographics, the surf park’s 700 car, awning shaded parking had two blocks completely full on a weekday afternoon. It turned out that most of the visitors were there for the hotel and restaurant that sits to the right of the wave pool. The surf session check-in area was nearly empty. I had my pick of a small hard-top board selection and walked out the sliding glass door towards the pool.
The Park
The view at Palm Springs Surf Club is a sight for sore eyes. A roughly 30,000 square foot wave pool of crystal blue water is surrounded by modern daybeds, bright green turf, and trendy seating. The backdrop of the iconic S-curve building that largely reads “PSSC” is an unobstructed view of the mountains. This building houses their pump system with blowers that push waves from West to East, producing picture perfect scenes of surfers spraying water with their boards as the sun sets at their backs. I walked towards the pool possessed as if I were a frightened cat going outside for the first time: wonder in my eyes and nervousness down my spine.
My laser focus on the waves was suddenly interrupted by a glimmering stream of golden flakes that fell from the sky to rest on my shoulders. Saw dust. Though Palm Springs Surf Club launched on April 1st, 2024, almost a year later construction was in full swing. A new building was being added to the 21.7 acre property that would have a balcony overlooking the pool, a bar, restaurant, and simulator games for entertainment.
Most of the surf park was not built from the ground up. It has been a $92M adaptive reuse project in which an old water park called Wet n Wild was revamped. A “lazy river” ride and swimming pool from the previous park are still on site. The wave pool wasn’t new either. The owners made it surfable by buying Surf Loch and installing their SurfPool technology. Along the wall of the pool are depth markers that seem to jump around: from 5’ 9” to 2’ 1” then back up to 4’ 1”. They are indicators of the pool’s bathymetry—the shape of the pool’s bottom. When this shape is combined with pneumatic pumps pushing water over it, we get waves that are perfect for surfing.
To the left of the wave pool is a set of steps that double as seating for dance parties and behind that is a small building housing a finished bar and restaurant called Drifters. The bar was my first stop. And it’s where things started to transition from exciting but intimidating to intriguing and fun.
The People and The Pool
My mocktail was served alongside a conversation with a bartender who seemed to genuinely enjoy the place even though he didn’t surf much. “It’s not really my thing,” he said. His thing happened to be riding an ATV through the mountains while shooting his gun. I found this curious primarily because I assumed everyone working at a surf park would be a surfer. The waiter I had wasn’t a surfer either though his highlights from Palm Springs were more aligned with what I anticipated—he loved the ability to spend time hiking mountains and swimming in springs. We chatted like new friends and I found myself so enthralled by the images conjured during these conversations that I nearly forgot that I was in Palm Springs to surf.
Five minutes before the session start time I rushed to pull on my wetsuit by the seating area. There were no locker rooms on site but fortunately it was 75 degrees and sunny and I was already dressed in a swim suit just as I would be when going for a surf in the ocean. In the 62 degree water a three by two millimeter wetsuit was perfectly comfortable. As I paddled out to the lineup at the back of the pool, I realized our intermediate A-frame session wouldn’t have an in-water instructor or coach. Some guidance would have been helpful given our range of skills and ages and the fact that most of us had never surfed in a wave pool before. Fortunately our lineup was fairly friendly. We worked as a group to figure out how we would take turns going left and right.
Once someone went for a wave it was difficult to see their ride from the takeoff area or even along the sides of the pool. The waves were big enough so that from behind your visibility was limited and they offered short enough rides so that from the sides you could easily miss them while trying to duck dive under the oncoming wave. That meant there wasn’t much potential for sharing advice or cheering people on as I would later experience at other surf parks. However, one of the owner’s sons happened to jump in to our session and gave a quick run down of more advanced positions to take off from. I tried them and failed. Still, I was able to redeem myself with some successful rides. One person even complimented me encouragingly after he saw that I finally got a wave without immediately falling.
Though I only experienced one session, I got the sense that PSSC was designed with a variety of levels in mind. As a beginner, I was able to drop in to half of my waves and falling never felt unsafe though I did pull back on a couple waves to avoid hitting someone. Meanwhile, the surf park’s Instagram page shows the best surfers in the world getting airs and pulling in to barrels in the very same pool. This accommodation for a range of potential on the waves is likely due to the expertise of surfers Cheyne Magnusson and Kalani Robb, co-owners of Palm Springs Surf Club. Magnusson helped refine the waves for what is considered one of the most popular wave pools in the world at Waco Surf in Texas back when it was called Barefoot Surf Ranch (BSR). Because of his experience, it is no wonder that PSSC has been praised by the surf community for its ability to produce exciting waves.
My session ended with one last fun wipeout in the shallow section of the pool where the reformed waves still had plenty of power. As I walked back through the pool’s gate, I felt a subtle adrenaline high accompanied by a slight feeling of dissatisfaction. Though the session wasn’t quite as thrilling as surfing in the ocean, I really wanted more. An hour of waves didn’t feel like enough and of course I only started getting the hang of the drop in towards the end of our allotted time. I would have liked to paddle back out and just keep going. Instead it was time to process what had just happened.
The Poolside
The turf outside of the pool area became the place to debrief. I traded notes with one of the surfers in my session and I learned that he was from the Bay Area and it was his first time ever riding a hardtop board. He was struggling to stand up on the waves but as a dedicated beginner that didn’t deter him or prevent him from having fun.
Palm Springs Surf Club like most surf parks does not have a vetting or skill level assessment process which means guests have to determine for themselves what level is appropriate for them. This requires trial and error if you don’t have a guide because there simply isn’t a good way to know how the different levels in a wave pool will translate for an individual person’s ocean surfing experience. Whatever level you pick you are stuck with. Most people want to optimize for the nearly $200 hourly cost by not picking something too easy. Given our performance in the pool, the Bay Area surfer and I both might have benefited from doing a beginner session instead of the intermediate.
The next conversation I struck up was with a surfer who had brought his Soloshot camera with him to film his rides. It was set up on a sturdy tripod overlooking the pool. As he packed up to leave he told me how much value he got out of watching footage of his sessions and he enthusiastically filled me in on how his equipment worked. Except that on this day it didn’t. A slight mistake in leaving the lens cap dangling off to the side caused the system to fail. Our poolside conversation gave me the opportunity to share with him what I knew about the Flowstate technology installed at the park which uses security like cameras to record everyone’s rides all day and night.
As the area began to clear out I found myself sitting on a daybed adjacent to a family from Florida. Though it was their first time at a surf park, I saw them rip into waves like pros during our session. They were in town visiting their grandmother who was local to Palm Springs and she was pleased to have the surf park open because it would mean frequent family visits. She was used to tourists and kindly offered me one of her extra drinks as we spoke, probably because she could see my skin was not adapting well to the arid weather.
The Club
After I polished off a bacon pineapple pizza I walked back to Drifters to close my tab. It turned out that my timing could not have been better and I was fortunate enough to run in to the park’s managers and owners. They were extremely welcoming, generous, and clearly hard at work. I was offered another drink from the bar and the opportunity to sit down with them and learn more about how the park came into being. Palm Springs Surf Club has had its fair share of challenges like any surf park does. Nonetheless the team had positive and optimistic attitudes which permeated the environment. Before, during, and after being in the water, each social interaction I had made me feel less nervous, more excited, and overall comfortable.
The feeling of comfort is what made me not want to leave. I felt like I belonged. Beyond just the enjoyment of surfing in the wave pool, the surf park gave me that sense of belonging. Eventually it was time for me to go and start my roadtrip to Arizona to visit the next surf park on my tour but before I left bought two t-shirts from the gift shop. This solidified my membership. I’m in the club now.
Special thanks to Naradah Tisdel and Mike Goldys for reviewing this piece.