Propelled by a swift current on the Colorado River earlier this month, my son, Tom, and I gazed at red rock cliffs gleaming against an azure, near cloudless sky. The rustle of aspen and cottonwoods in a gentle breeze mingled with the rush of rapids just downstream.

“You know,” I said, “Over the years I’ve kayaked thousands and thousands of miles in rivers, lakes, streams, the ocean, and I can’t think of a more exquisite place to paddle than right here.”

Tom nodded.

“Hard to beat,” he replied.

It was about to get even better. A pair of eagles soared overhead, joined by a great blue heron just as we approached our first stretch of tumbling white water.

Tom and I were each aboard a short, beamy, inflatable kayak appropriately called a ducky because it has a tendency to bob above waves rather than plunge through them, as do the vessels we’re more accustomed to paddling. We had rented the boats in Moab, strapped them to the roof of our rental car and driven northeast along Route 128 toward McInnis Canyon National Park.

Our river adventure took place midway through a weeklong sojourn in Utah, during which Tom, my wife, Lisa and I exulted in glorious hikes in Arches and Canyonlands national parks. (I wrote about these last week).

After savoring overland adventures it was time to hit the legendary Colorado River. Lisa, though a longtime kayaker, prefers calmer water and volunteered to be our shuttle driver.

The outfitter had suggested we put in about 7 miles upstream, but Tom shook his head.

“We can go farther,” he said. In face, Tom, who has been living out West for the past several years, had paddled the same route back in April and had his launch site picked out.

“But that’s 14 miles,” the proprietor said, looking at a map. “It’s pretty slow water the first few miles. Most people just want to float with the current. I guess you guys want to paddle.”

That we did.

Though the 1,450-mile waterway that flows through seven U.S. and two Mexican states produces some of the world’s most epic rapids when it roars through the Grand Canyon, it has been so often dammed and siphoned off for irrigation and drinking by the time it empties into the Sea of Cortez the mighty Colorado is barely a trickle.

The stretch we would be paddling was by no means of Grand Canyon capacity, nor was it a mere piddle. On a scale of I to VI it registered Class II in a dozen or so sections, featuring 2-foot standing waves, tricky hydraulics, a few swirling eddies, and one Class III that could slam your boat into a canyon wall if you weren’t paying attention.

Tom and I had the river to ourselves for more than an hour after putting in near the Hittle Bottom Campgrounds. Though the water temperature dipped to a bone-numbing 50 degrees, we wore shorts and T-shirts because the baking sun brought the air temperature to the mid-80s. Also, the duckies, as promised, kept us high and dry.

Stirring up so much silt the Colorado here looked more like a “Got Milk” ad than a Coors commercial.

“The old saying, it’s too thick to drink, too thin to plow,” Tom observed.

Duckies are about half as long and twice as wide as sea kayaks, and left to their own devices will spin around 180 degrees to face upstream, but they proved extremely seaworthy in rapids.

Piloting a ducky through standing waves is like riding a bucking bronco, as you can see from the accompanying video that Tom took. You can hear him whooping; my happy hollering was just out of earshot.

At one point I checked my GPS watch and was astonished to be shooting along at 8 mph.

“We probably hit 10 in a few places, where you were too busy to look,” Tom said.

The bow has a tendency to bounce up almost to vertical, yet the ride felt fairly stable and only once, when I nearly broached in a whirlpool, did I feel as if I might be poised for an involuntary swim.

As the current picked up, so did the river traffic.

A handful of other duckies had put in downriver, along with several standup paddleboards, whose riders for the most part expertly negotiated whitewater sections. Soon we were joined by a giant flotilla of rafts, the SUVs of whitewater.

Decked out with parasols, coolers and folding chairs, these floating inflatables carried passengers ranging from toddlers to octogenarians, along with numerous pooches. No matter, it was all fun, even when we had to wait our turn to shoot through narrow sections of rapids.

Eventually, we got past the slower-moving vessels and had the river mostly to ourselves at the takeout, where Lisa waited with the car. She didn’t have to ask how it went; Tom and I were beaming ear-to-ear.

“An epic experience,” I said. “Right up there with John Wesley Powell.”

Powell, an American naturalist, led the first geographic expedition of the Green and Colorado rivers in 1869, during which he and his crew suffered all sorts of hardships.

Oh yeah, and he did it with one arm.