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River features allow surfers, kayakers to enjoy unending waves
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Waves can provide a respite from the summer heat, if you know where to find them.
New Mexico offers at least two spots to hang ten: Farmington’s Gateway River Wave on the Animas River and the wave just below the Abiquiú dam on the Rio Chama.
“The Farmington wave is a next generation great wave,” Ed Lucero, a longtime river surfing advocate, said in a direct message .
“Really cool for Farmington community and not too far from us to surf a world-class wave,” he said.
The season started with big waves in early summer.
“Regrettably, it is well below ‘surfable’ right now due to the lack of flow,” Warren Unsicker, from the city of Farmington, said.
The area is open for other water play, according to the Gateway River Wave website, but surfing requires more than four times the current flow. The surf wave forms when the Animas River flows between 400 and 3,500 cubic feet per second.
“People use the river for rafting, kayaking and other water sports,” Unsicker said.
Current flow rate numbers can be found at the city of Farmington wave page, farmingtonnm.gov/wave, or the United States Geological Survey monitoring page for the Animas River.
River flows, which will make waves, tend to increase in late summer and early fall, according to data from previous years.
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Information about flow on the Rio Chama can be found on USGS as well.
Created about five years ago, the Farmington wave is more modern than the one on the Rio Chama.
“The big difference is that our wave is a constructed wave shaper with adjustable dams (weirs) that automatically manage the flow of the river to our wave form to allow it to remain surfable during different levels of flow in the river,” Unsicker said.
A rock staircase allows surfers to quickly get out of the river and back to the wave.
The Farmington Wave project was completed this summer, funded in part with a grant from the Office of Natural Resource Trustee Gold King Mine funds, and a New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Department Trails+ grant.
The $2 million from the Gold King Mine pollution release settlement was used partly to restore public confidence in using the Animas River for recreation, according to the city recreation department.
On the Rio Chama, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New Mexico Department of Fish and Wildlife collaborated on the project to enhance fish habitat and create a fish ladder, just downstream of Abiquiú Dam, and the recreational wave was a side benefit. You can drive there along Forest Road 162, Abiquiú Dam Road, either from the dam or by turning left when coming from Española just past Bode’s Store on U.S. 285.
