The Columbia River Gorge has long been the place to be for the North Hemisphere’s summer months. The cool, wet coastline and the hot, dry desert create a pressure gradient unlike anything else, providing constant winds funnelling against the river from April to October.
For many years, windsurfing was the go-to sport for the river-goers, and then kiting became hot in the early 2000’s and the scene slowly changed. Kiting has always been tough due to the gusty winds and tough launches The Gorge provides, but where the Hood River flows into the Columbia, lies a huge sandbank perfect for kiting and a great location for the Slider Project Kite Park. Recently it has become a proper world class destination for foiling, where tricky launches and gusty winds don’t matter, and you’ll find hundreds of people surfing the famous river swell.