Boys and Their Dads Rollin’ on the River

We’re here preparing to ride the river, baking in our rental wetsuits and thick life vests, rubbing on sunscreen and telling ourselves we’ll be ready for the sun or the soup, whatever the day brings.

“I feel like a seal,” I say, zipping up the black wetsuit.

“You look OK, Dad,” the boy says.

“A middle-aged seal,” I say.

Because that’s how I feel, like a seal who watches too much TV. Like a seal who lives in the suburbs and drinks beer on weekends and doesn’t watch his cholesterol.

And this is no place for out-of-shape seals. There is danger here on the upper Kern, where we have traveled with a dozen Boy Scouts and seven other middle-aged seals this Saturday to test the waters.

Rough waters. Not theme park waters. Dangerous waters, with whirlpools forming behind big rocks, whirlpools capable of pulling swimmers in and not letting go until it’s too late.

So when the guide says, “Listen up,” everybody listens, even the dads, because they have heard the stories about how California’s rivers are especially treacherous this summer, gurgling with snowmelt rushing faster than traffic on the 405.

We listen as the guide tells us how to put on the life vests.

And we listen as he tells us that if we fall in, we should lie back and point our feet down river, so that the feet cushion the impact from colliding with rocks.

“Like you’re sitting in a lounge chair,” the guide says, which brings it home to a lot of the dads.

“Did he say ‘lounge chair’?” a father asks.

“Yeah, lounge chair,” I say.

Beside us, the Kern River rolls past. It seems to be going about 40 mph, until it hits the white water, where it picks up speed and tumbles over and around itself.

“Is it cold?” I ask the guide.

“It’s warming up,” the guide says.

“You didn’t answer the question,” I say.

And we pile into the rafts, seven or eight in each one, a guide to each raft, paddling out to the middle toward the rapids, Big Daddy and Vegas, rapids with the kinds of nicknames bikers have.

“Here comes Big Daddy,” our guide yells. “Right side, paddle forward. OK, now left side forward.”

Big Daddy is built like a bad prank. It doglegs left, so that the waves come at us not straight on,

like most rapids, but at 45-degree angles, which is a little too much geometry to paddle through, at least for some fathers.

We bounce roughly around the bend and through the white water till we are aiming straight for the biggest rock.

“Paddle forward!” the guide yells.

As in most cases, we hit this big rock right on, going down, then up, catching some air, then flopping down hard again, certain at one point that we will flip backward and sort of wondering why we didn’t.

“Good one,” the guide yells when we are done.

And we paddle off toward the next set of rapids.

Fortunately, these are mostly Class 2 rapids, beginner rapids, which are rated by various degrees of difficulty, Class 1 being the easiest.

As promised, the water is high. But that means that many of the rocks we would normally need to dodge are a foot under. It doesn’t seem quite as dangerous as we thought. More thrilling than frightening. But nothing to get careless about.

“Here comes Ewings!” the guide yells.

And we head for Ewings, the last major set of rapids on this run, at a wide part of the river where a photographer sits in what looks like a lifeguard tower, snapping fearful faces as the rafts plunge by, then selling the photos later at 20 bucks a pop.

“Right side forward!” the guide yells. “OK, everybody forward!”

My son is in another raft 100 yards behind. I’d prefer that he were next to me, so that if we hit a rock, I could grab his shoulder before he tumbled out. Or at least fall out together. But when we teamed up for the rafts, he scampered off with a couple of buddies. And before we knew it, we were launched.

“How’d you do, Dad?” he asks when we meet up after the first run.

“OK,” I say.

“You didn’t fall in?” he asks.

I guess he just sort of assumed I’d fall in. He is always amazed when I can do something halfway athletic, as if I am some Richard Nixon type who spends too much of his life in air-conditioning, a man of thought, not action, incapable of anything much more physical than getting out of a shower.

“I was sure you’d fall in,” he says with a little smile.

“Sorry, maybe next time,” I say, smacking him playfully on the shoulder, which for a 12-year-old is the ultimate gesture of friendship.

And back up the river we go.

* Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.