About Your Guide’s an Idiot
The name “Your Guide’s an Idiot” comes from the Class II rapid appearing short and simple, leaving customers who have swum the rapid thinking that their guide might in fact be an idiot. “Frank Lost His Shorts” is named after a customer, Frank, who fell out of the boat in this rapid and had his swim shorts removed by the downward suction of the eddy lines. The story goes that he finished the rafting trip with his T-shirt fashioned into a diaper. (Kern River Outfitters wrote about the story here, which varies slightly from what we heard, but that’s just how river stories go.) In recent years this same fate has been suffered by other customers, solidifying the notoriety of this rapid and proving that Frank Lost His Shorts is more than a river myth.
How to run Your Guide’s an Idiot
Two boulders in the center of the river. Start left of the top boulder, move right between them, and exit right of the bottom boulder. The swirling water here can easily cause a boat to lose its angle if the guide isn’t paying attention, leaving boaters dropping sideways into waves right of the bottom rock and making people fall into the water.
