Barreled

“BuT ThErE ArEn’T AnY SuRfErS iN YaKiMa”

First off, wrong. If you’re a surfer, or an aspiring one, in the Upper or Lower Yakima Valleys, please leave a 🤙 in the comments and stand up and be counted!

Secondly, as we laid out in our previous post, we’re not in Yakima for just the Yakima market. We’re in Yakima to make a day trip possible for the entire Northwest! In our market, there are an estimated 200,000 surfers that take on the frigid North Pacific 1.2 million times/year. Plus, did you know, according to SFIA data, only tennis and pickleball (literally, off the chart) grew faster than surfing over the pandemic? And I bet you’re reading this in your favorite pickleball outfit…

We already have a bunch of surfers in the PNW, we just call them skiers and snowboarders. Quick history lesson, the first snowboard was made from converting the original “Snurfer” so if you can’t see the thru line from surfing to snowboarding, lawd help us all! In our region, there are an estimated 2.5 million skiers/snowboarders that visit the mountains more than 10 million times/year.

And our research shows there is even more interest in surfing! We surveyed three key focus groups, high schoolers in suburbia Seattle, marketing students at our Alma Mater , and in the Yakima taproom. We found about half participate in snowsports but, when it came to surfing - learning, trying, continuing - that number spiked 25% higher. Quick, can someone do the math for us: What’s 125% times 10 million ski visits?🧐

If we build it, they will come.

We spent the final Saturday in August saying so long to our friends, , and their Sounds of Summer concert series. Thank you for helping us spread the word about surfing in the Yakima Valley and we’ll see ya’ll next summer! Yew!