The First Riders Have Already Found Taylor's Wave. Woodfin Is Asking Them to Wait.

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 29, 2026

A video sent to a local news station this June showed nearly 20 kayakers lined up to surf a wave on the French Broad River in Woodfin. That sounds like a celebration, and in a way it is. The problem is that the wave they were riding sits inside an active construction site, and the people building it would very much like everyone to wait a few more months.

The wave is called Taylor's Wave, and it is one of the larger outdoor projects to come to this part of the mountains in years. It is a human-made standing wave engineered into the riverbed, the first feature of its kind in the region. Phase I is finished, water is flowing over the structure, and a real surfable wave is already forming. For paddlers who have watched this project crawl forward for the better part of a decade, that is a hard thing to resist.

Woodfin Town Manager Shannon Tuch understands the pull. She is just asking people to fight it for a little while longer.

What Exactly Is Taylor's Wave

If you have never seen an artificial whitewater wave, the concept can be hard to picture. This is not a water park ride or a wave pool. It is a permanent feature built directly into the French Broad River, designed to take the natural energy of the moving water and shape it into a clean, surfable standing wave that stays in one place while the river flows through it.

The way you get there is with a precisely engineered ledge made of natural rock and concrete, installed in the riverbed. The geometry of that ledge is everything. Too steep and the wave is unusable or dangerous. Too flat and it disappears. Getting it right is less like pouring a foundation and more like tuning an instrument.

What makes the design work is that it responds to the river itself. At low and moderate flows, the wave face is gentler with less break at the top, friendly enough for stand-up river surfers, intermediate kayakers, and even boogie boarders. As the flow comes up, the same feature steepens into a more advanced wave built for stronger paddlers. One structure, a whole range of skill levels, all depending on how much water the French Broad is carrying that day.

That flexibility is intentional. The town did not want a feature that only worked for expert kayakers on big water. It wanted something the broader community could use, which fits the spirit of the greenway project it belongs to.

The Engineering Behind the Wave

The most surprising part of this story might be where the wave was first tested. Before a single rock went into the French Broad, engineers built a 1:30 scale replica of this exact stretch of river at the Czech Technical University in Prague.

That model was not a computer simulation. It was a physical thing, a miniature river section with pumps circulating real water at varying flow rates so designers could watch how the wave behaved. They spent more than 12 days shaving surfaces, repositioning elements, adding material, and refining the shape until the wave did what they wanted across the full range of flows. The testing happened back in August 2022, years before the structure took its final form in the water.

The design work came from S2o Design and Engineering, a firm that builds whitewater parks around the world. They have compared the Woodfin wave to the Camphill Surf Park on the Hawea River in New Zealand, which gives you a sense of the company this feature in Buncombe County is keeping. Local landscape architecture firm Equinox Environmental rounded out the team on the ground here.

It is a strange thing to think about. A wave that thousands of Western North Carolina paddlers will eventually surf was sketched out, modeled, and stress-tested in a laboratory halfway across the world, then translated back into rock and concrete on a river that runs through the middle of our region. That is the kind of detail that tends to get lost once a project opens and everyone is just enjoying it.

Why the Town Is Saying Wait

Here is the heart of the current standoff. Phase I is done and the wave works, but Phase II is still under construction, and that changes everything about safety.

Tuch laid out the concerns plainly. There is equipment on-site. There is debris from the construction work. And heavy rains have washed additional rock into the river, which is exactly the kind of thing you cannot see from the surface of a moving wave. Until the full project is complete, the town cannot go in and confirm that the water levels are where they are supposed to be, which means underwater hazards remain a real possibility.

"We understand the enthusiasm, and we're really happy that people are excited about it," Tuch said. "But out of an abundance of caution, we really want people to try and temper their enthusiasm and just wait for the project to be done."

That is not a town official being a killjoy. That is someone who knows that an unfinished river feature is a different animal than a finished one. A submerged piece of construction debris or an unexpected rock can turn a fun afternoon into an emergency in seconds, and the wave is designed for intermediate-to-advanced paddlers precisely because the water it generates has force.

The frustration is understandable on both sides. Paddlers have waited years for this. The town has spent years and millions of dollars getting it right and does not want a preventable injury attached to the project weeks before the finish line.

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How Enforcement Actually Works on the River

One of the more interesting wrinkles in this story is what the town can and cannot do about it. Woodfin does not have the legal authority to pull people out of the river itself.

"The police aren't asking people to leave the river," Tuch said. "If they're in the river, we don't have the authority to ask people to leave." Instead, the Woodfin Police Department and town staff are running an education campaign, talking to paddlers about the hazards and what to expect rather than writing citations or making arrests.

The land is a different story. The shoreline is an active construction site, and the town absolutely can remove people from it. Tuch described walking the area herself and running into folks who had crossed beyond the construction line, then having a conversation with them about why the area is closed off for now and what the finished feature will look like.

"We can remove people from the construction area on shore, and we will," she said. "We'll ask people to leave if they're in this construction zone or on the other side where we're actively working, not from the wave structure in the water itself."

It is a measured approach, and it reflects a town trying to manage genuine excitement rather than stamp it out. Nobody is being treated like a criminal for wanting to surf a wave that has been a decade in the making. The message is simpler than that. The river will still be here in a few months, and it will be safer and better when it is finished.

A Decade in the Making

To appreciate why people cannot wait, it helps to understand how long this has been coming. The roots go back to a loss. Taylor Hunt, a celebrated young paddler from the Asheville area, died in a whitewater accident in Ecuador in December 2015 at just 22 years old. He was the son of Marc Hunt, a former Asheville vice-mayor and city councilman.

The Hunt family threw their volunteer leadership and financial support behind the Woodfin project, and in 2023 the feature was officially named Taylor's Wave in his honor, recognizing both his community leadership and his adventurous spirit. There is something fitting about a young paddler's name living on in a wave that will introduce a new generation to the sport.

The funding and approvals built up over years. Woodfin voters approved bonds back in 2016. A grant of nearly $5.9 million came through in September 2022 to complete the wave. In-stream construction finally began in July 2024, planned as an eight to ten month effort.

Then Helene hit in September 2024, and like so much of Western North Carolina, the project ground to a halt while the region absorbed the damage. Construction resumed in spring 2025, Phase I wrapped in April 2026, and Phase II began in May. The current target is completion of the wave in late summer or early fall, with the full surrounding greenway and park slated for early spring 2027.

That long arc is exactly why a video of 20 kayakers surfing an unfinished wave is both a headache and a quiet win for the town.

What It Means for the Region

A finished Taylor's Wave is more than a fun afternoon for local paddlers. It is the kind of amenity that changes how people think about a place.

Whitewater features draw visitors, and visitors spend money in the towns around them. The Nantahala Gorge built an entire local economy around moving water, and while one standing wave in Woodfin is a smaller thing, it adds to the broader story Western North Carolina already tells. This is a region where the outdoors is not a weekend escape but a daily backdrop, and Taylor's Wave puts a major river feature within reach of Asheville, Woodfin, and the surrounding communities.

It also fits the larger Woodfin Greenway and Blueway plan, a connected system of trails and river access designed to bring people to the French Broad rather than just past it. When the wave, the greenway, and the park all come together in 2027, that corridor becomes a destination.

For the towns up and down these rivers, from Marshall to Hot Springs to the smaller communities people pass through on the way to the water, projects like this reinforce why so many choose to live here in the first place. The mountains and the rivers are the draw, and they keep giving back.

If the pull of living within paddling distance of a wave like this has ever crossed your mind, I am always happy to talk about what that looks like in this corner of the mountains. For now, the best move is patience. The wave will be there, finished and safe, before the year is out.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Taylor's Wave located in Western North Carolina?

Taylor's Wave is being built on the French Broad River in Woodfin, North Carolina, just north of Asheville in Buncombe County. It is part of the larger Woodfin Greenway and Blueway project, a riverside park and trail system designed to give the community better access to the water. The wave sits within an active construction zone for now, and the surrounding greenway, parking, and shoreline amenities are still being finished. When complete, it will be the region's first engineered whitewater wave, drawing kayakers, river surfers, and boogie boarders to a stretch of river that was previously used mostly for flatwater paddling and tubing.

When will Taylor's Wave officially open to the public?

Town officials are targeting completion of the wave itself for late summer or early fall of 2026, with public messaging pointing toward an opening by the end of the year. Phase I, which includes the wave structure that generates the standing wave, was finished in spring 2026 and water is already flowing over it. Phase II is under construction now. The broader surrounding project, including the full greenway and park features, is slated to wrap up in early spring 2027. Until the town can confirm proper water levels and clear the construction hazards, officials are asking paddlers to hold off rather than use the wave early.

Why are kayakers being told to stay off Taylor's Wave right now?

The site is still an active construction zone while Phase II is being built. Town Manager Shannon Tuch has cited several specific hazards, including construction equipment on-site, debris from the work, and additional rock that washed into the river during heavy rains. Because the project is not finished, the town cannot yet guarantee that water levels are where they should be, which means there could be underwater hazards that are not visible from the surface. Woodfin Police are running an education campaign rather than citing paddlers, but the town can remove people from the shoreline construction area on land.

Who was Taylor Hunt, and why is the wave named for him?

Taylor Hunt was a celebrated young whitewater paddler from the Asheville area who died in 2015 at age 22 in a kayaking accident on a river in Ecuador. He was the son of Marc Hunt, a former Asheville vice-mayor and city councilman. The Hunt family provided volunteer leadership and financial support for the Woodfin project, and in 2023 the feature was officially named Taylor's Wave to honor his community leadership and adventurous spirit. The naming ties a major piece of regional outdoor infrastructure to a paddler whose life was rooted in the rivers of Western North Carolina and beyond.