What the hell am I doing in Arizona looking for water?
It’s the kind of question that creeps in the moment you step off the plane at Sky Harbor and the dry heat hits like an open oven door. Arizona is famous precisely because it’s unforgiving, a place where the presence of life amid the extreme lack of water is its own marvel. The compelling thing about attractions on this hot moon is the ingenuity behind the fact that they exist at all.
Long before the golf courses and cul-de-sacs, the Indigenous Hohokam people engineered one of the most sophisticated canal systems in the ancient world, diverting water from the Salt River to irrigate crops and sustain entire communities. Built by hand more than 1,000 years ago, portions of those canals still guide water through the Mesa valley today.
Phoenix’s main pockets tell different stories: Scottsdale has its polished, resort-town sheen; Tempe is full of young brains on vices; and Mesa is expansive and quietly strange. The kind of Arizona you think of when someone says Arizona. It’s the state’s third-largest city by population, but it feels like a series of outposts stitched together: historic downtown blocks, desert trailheads, leftovers of the Old West, and now—the improbable thing that brought me here—a surf park.
As I pull into Revel Surf Park, a watery lagoon glows blue against a backdrop of red dirt and distant peaks. The waves come and go like someone endlessly draining and refilling a mirage.
Revel—the centerpiece of Mesa’s Cannon Beach development—opened in late 2024, turning a patch of desert into Arizona’s first full-scale surf park. Roughly 2.2 million gallons of water circulate through the lagoon in an area that averages just over eight inches of rain a year.
It looks excessive, wildly irresponsible. It isn’t.
“We built this very strategically,” general manager Ryan Armstrong explains. “The well is located right here on the property. It’s processed and piped right into the lagoon.”
The pool runs on a closed-loop filtration system, recycling every drop and losing water only to evaporation. Developers say the park uses less water than a single golf hole—and a mere two percent of what the alfalfa field that once occupied the site consumed. Because Revel draws directly from the ground rather than city taps, Armstrong notes, “our water bill is essentially zero.”
Like many of the staff members at Revel, Armstrong is a surfer transplanted from the coast. The wave technology he oversees didn’t come out of a research lab, but a backyard. Matt Gunn, the creator of Swell Manufacturing, built a functional model of the wave in his own yard before partnering with developer Cole Cannon and pro surfer Shane Beschen to bring it to scale. The result is a private ocean—a lagoon where surfers can choose between the sloping lines of Trestles, the hollow barrels of Oahu’s V-Land, or Malibu’s mellow shoulders.
As a surfer spoiled by San Diego’s coastline, I’m equal parts curious and skeptical. Wave pools can feel sterile, stripped of the wild consequence that makes the ocean seem alive. But the sea can’t come close to the constant supply of waves a surf park offers. “We’re running eight hours a day, eight sessions a day, 10 surfers in each session, with waves every minute,” Armstrong tells me. “We have stadium lights, so sometimes we’re out here surfing until midnight.”
I opt for the Trestles setting, expecting smooth sailing. I’m wrong. The drop is quick, the margin for error thin. I get pitched. I recover. I link together a few snaps, then lose it again. Even manufactured waves have a way of humbling you. A few solid rides save the session.
As I dry off, Armstrong walks me through the broader vision. The 44-acre Cannon Beach district surrounding Revel will include roughly 500,000 square feet of retail.
“There are about seven or eight restaurants going in and a super high-end med spa,” he says, pointing toward the construction. Beyond food and surfing, the site is designed as a multi-sport hub. A massive KTR (Kids That Rip) indoor action sports park is in the works, featuring trampolines, parkour obstacles, and a world-class skate park.
This corner of the desert won’t stay quiet for long.
In hindsight, the advantages to Revel Surf Park are obvious: no suffocating crowds, no jockeying for position. Waves arrive every minute, precisely on schedule (if you miss one, that’s on you). There are no flat days at Revel. You don’t have to monitor weather reports and tide charts to know when it might be a good day for a surf. The swell is never not quite right for the break. It’s surfing’s version of shooting fish in a barrel—a strange, athletic fever dream and a convincing way to scratch the surfing itch when the nearest ocean is more than 300 miles away.
The next morning I head east to a more ancient, less humanly engineered water: the Salt River. I’m met with the Superstition Mountains. Visible from nearly anywhere in Mesa, they seem to watch you as much as you watch them. They absolutely loom over the city.
The road I take, the Apache Trail, cuts through the Superstitions, threading its way through unforgiving terrain. Originally a footpath for Apache people, it was expanded in the early 1900s to haul materials for the Roosevelt Dam. Despite the cliffs and the history, the drive is straightforward—no four-wheel drive required—and the road still feels raw, weaving through waves of volcanic rock above the river.
At Saguaro Lake, the water sits calm between jagged peaks. A bald eagle circles overhead before disappearing behind a ridgeline. I launched from Saguaro Lake Guest Ranch, joining a small group of kayakers—maybe half a dozen in total. Aside from a few fishing boats hugging the perimeter, the lake is still. I set off in my orange kayak, swallowed by blue water and rock façades on all sides. As I embark, a massive catfish lunges at the surface, swallowing a fish before vanishing into the deep. Only 30 miles from downtown Mesa, nature is clearly in charge.
I paddle deeper down Saguaro Lake’s tendrils and venture toward a small passage in the walls. The million-year-old rock walls and caves of Willow Canyon Creek dwarf me, suspended hundreds of feet above. Eventually, the corridor opens, and I return to open water. I paddle back to shore and the surrounding hillsides, saguaro cacti everywhere standing stiff as sentries.
On my way out of the Superstitions, I stop at Phon D. Sutton, where the Salt and Verde rivers converge. Named for a longtime local outdoorsman and conservation advocate, the site has become one of the region’s most accessible desert gathering points—a place for birding, hiking, tubing, and fishing. It’s one of the rare desert places where water feels abundant. Beyond bright red boulders, the scene feels straight out of a John Ford Western.
According to locals, wild horses roam here. I don’t see any, but fresh tracks in the mud prove they aren’t just town mythology.
Back in Mesa, the relief of sundown is palpable. Nightlife has more life in hot towns. Downtown Main Street has an energy that feels earned. Bars spill onto sidewalks. Coffee shops stay open late.
Espiritu Cocktails + Comida is a cocktail bar with a chef heart. Opened in 2022 by Arizona-bred chef Roberto Centeno—a multiple-time James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef in the Southwest who grew up straddling American and Mexican food culture—the restaurant is dim and intimate, lit by the glow of old TVs looping The Twilight Zone. I order the mesquite-grilled strip steak (Centeno won a grill masters episode of Chopped on Food Network), seasonal ceviche, and a bartender’s choice cocktail. The bartender’s choice doesn’t disappoint, and neither does the food. I sign the check and follow the sound rumbling down the street.
The heartbeat of Main Street, the Nile Theater—a century-old live music venue—prepares for another night of action. It regularly hosts touring and local acts across punk, metal, rock, hip-hop, and indie, so nights range from flailing mosh pits to low-key, intimate performances. Nearby, an arcade bar bleeds neon. I pause and gawk at Milano’s, the 75-year-old music shop with vintage Les Pauls in its window. I walk past a pinball parlor and its frantic clacking.
PARTNER CONTENT
On my last day, I stop at Goldfield Ghost Town, a once-thriving gold mining hub. Founded in 1893, great optimism and a healthy dose of desperation attracted 4,000 residents during the height of the Gold Rush. Further down the road, Apache Land Movie Ranch offers another venture into the past. Built in 1960 and billed as the “Western Movie Capitol of the World,” this is where stars like Clint Eastwood and Stella Stevens turned cowboy fascination into a uniquely American, if problematic, genre—and it’s still stocked with compelling remnants like a chapel, stables, and miniatures.
Driving back through the desert is its own attraction—the unimaginable forever of unpopulated land, that hypnotism of the abyss. Every canal, reservoir, or artificial wave out here is a show of the will to live in a sort of endlessness.
