The Big Spill : Southern California’s Wave of Full-Fledged Water Parks Unleashes the Kid in All of Us

“Outta my way, kid.”

Make that your battle cry and you stand a chance. Reveal a flicker of timidity and you’ve lost a right you probably don’t even know you possess.

If you’re 25 or older, you were deprived. Growing up, you were stuck with amusement parks the likes of Disneyland. Fine fun and all. But remember those August afternoons? Getting pelted with a few measly drops of water on the Matterhorn was the most exhilarating part, right?

Well, today’s adolescents know something you probably don’t: Southern California’s five full-fledged water parks provide the thorough drenching traditional amusement parks tease you with but never deliver--and at least as many moderately cheap thrills.

Consider, for instance, this pivotal scene in the life of Noe Duarte, a middle-aged man from Borrego Springs. Egged on by co-workers at his company picnic, Duarte has climbed a four-story wooden tower at Sengme Oaks Waterpark in San Diego County and is scooting along on a track of metal rollers.

“You’re going to die, Noe!” taunts an 18-year-old blond man as Duarte clutches the handles of the yellow plastic toboggan upon which he reluctantly sits. “Noe! You’re going to die .”

From Duarte’s unpleasant perspective there’s nothing to contradict that prediction. Every 15 seconds or so, a young park employee casually jerks a lever, and one by one, the adolescents preceding him plummet from sight. Where they have gone is not apparent; an abyss of blue sky is.

Finally the young woman ahead of Duarte vanishes, followed by a passionate decrescendo scream. With the expression of a horse thief stepping onto a gallows, Duarte inches out to the edge of the track.

A few minutes later he stands in another line, dribbling water. Behind him, at the bottom of the nearly vertical 150-foot run he just completed, squealing toboggan riders kick up rooster-tails of spray as they skitter along a narrow trough.

“So, how was it, Noe?”

As his children and co-workers stare, amazed and amused, Duarte tries to answer. But his conscious mind has apparently retreated deep into his psyche. His eyes are wild and the facial muscles regulating his expressions have gone haywire. Instead of words, he emits a nutty chuckle that builds into the involuntary, convulsive waves of laughter generally associated with lunatics.

Some of you will find such behavior immature. Unbecoming someone of your station.

Be aware, though, that a transition of feelings occurs between the time you hesitantly begin to climb the walkway to one of these “rides” and the moment you pull yourself back onto firm ground again.

As an experiment, ease into the water slide scene with something gentle--the Bombay Blaster at Wild Rivers, in Irvine, perhaps. Stoically endure the adolescent babble in the winding line, and sit calmly on the padded lip of a big blue pipe that disappears into the hillside. The young attendant will explain procedures. When you feel comfortable, gingerly ease yourself into the tube.

Almost immediately you’ll make a few observations. One: It’s pitch black. Two: It’s wet. Three: You’re picking up speed.

(Ha! Tricked you! The Bombay Blaster’s hardly for beginners. The main thing now is to avoid panic and cardiac arrest.)

Nightmare visions of roller coasters-past flash through your mind as your body rockets through the darkness, banking and twisting in positions only Olympic luge racers are supposed to attain. You’ve lost your equilibrium! You’re adrift in the time-space continuum! You’ve got water in your nose!

Light at End of Tunnel

And just as a welcome light appears at the end of the tunnel, you’re fired cannon-like several feet above a pool into which you promptly descend at considerable speed.

Disoriented, you flop up onto dry land. And like an addled trout, you’re hooked. Instinctively, you exchange fast fives with the kid beside you, and find that you’ve learned to use words in new ways: “Dude! That was way rad, dude!”

Twanging surf music and Coppertone fumes waft in the summer breeze. “ Come on !” grown men whine, impatiently dragging companions toward yet another slide.

Reflecting, you’ll see that the transition of feelings, bottom-to-top-to-bottom, went something like this: Awkward. Silly. Concerned. Idiotic. Frightened. Stupefied. Exhilarated. Fifteen.

And there it is: You’re 15 years old again. Everyone’s 15.

Listen, for instance, to this conversation at the top of the Scorpion, a so-called “sui-slide” at the Oasis water park in Palm Springs. A 36-year-old cardiologist from San Diego has just offered the sage advice that folks with bad hearts should forgo this ride.

“How about people with no guts?” his friend, a 34-year-old developer asks as he peers down the two long troughs’ sliders descend at about 40 miles per hour in a virtual freefall. The drop is only seven stories, but with all that desert sprawled out around the mirage-like pools of the park, the illusion is that you’re as high as Mt. San Jacinto in the distance.

Worse Than a Cornice

“This is worse than looking over the cornice,” the developer says, refering to a notorious kamakazie ski run at Mammoth Mountain. “Will you think I’m a wussy if I don’t go?” he asks, in a tone of voice he probably hasn’t used since junior high.

Not all the slides at these parks are horrifying. Toddlers will immediately sprint for the waterfalls and elephant-shaped kiddy slides and parents will be pleased at how well the playground-type stuff exhausts the rug rats. (But be advised: The kid-to-lifeguard ratio at some of these places isn’t great, and the child-size lifevests they provide aren’t foolproof. A sensible approach may be: DON’T LET YOUNG CHILDREN OUT OF YOUR SIGHT.)

Some parks have circuitous inner-tube rides in which power lounging is the only required activity. At others, huge wave pools generate mushy freshwater surf. Jacuzzis soothe battered bodies at some parks and all offer sunbathing areas and pleasant, sub-scarey slides.

To appreciate these pleasures, though, you must first overcome inhibitions about entering the realm of perpetual adolescence. One tactic is to give yourself a dignified cover.

If you’re a sociologist, for instance, you might pretend you’re there to determine why a culture so obviously wrapped up in social climbing, ascending the ladders of success, scaling the peaks of excellence, gets such a kick out of going downhill fast.

If you’re an insurance agent, say you’re doing a risk assessment. Including drownings, there have been at least five deaths connected to waterslides or water parks nationally since 1980, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission received reports of 4,000 waterslide injuries requiring emergency room treatment last year. (There is some evidence that fat sliders are more injury prone than lean, athletic types, and some of the reported injuries may be the result of unsafe practices and/or antiquated equipment Southern California parks claim not to practice and/or possess.)

If you’re a venture capitalist, tell yourself you’re evaluating the growth potential of an industry that last year attracted an estimated 30-million visits to 70 or so parks nationwide. (That’s not counting the disparate venues such as miniature golf courses and luxury hotels that also are installing slides.)

Sloshing Through Waterfall

And if you’re a psychologist . . . Wait, there’s one sloshing through a waterfall in an inner tube at Raging Waters in San Dimas. Let’s inquire if adult water lovers are in danger of backsliding into the Peter Pan Syndrome or some such “I’ll-never-grow-up” pop psychology complex.

“I don’t like feeling age-stereotyped,” says Catherine Solange, a 38-year-old Marina del Rey psychotherapist. “ . . . At a certain age teen-agers are told they’re not supposed to be playing anymore. But adults need to play just as much as kids.”

A friend dragged Solange to Raging Waters for the first time on her 37th birthday. For a full 10 minutes she quivered with fear at the top of a slide called The Rampage. She finally shoved off, but only because she “was too embarrassed” to wriggle back down through the gantlet of people standing in line.

Now she’s a bona-fide water park aficionado. She fully approves of the heartfelt screams these places evoke.

“Going to water slides has made me much more daring in other areas of life . . . It has expanded my ability to take risks,” she added.”I’m thinking of taking my clients here to overcome their anxiety. Lots of people walk around with subliminal fears they’re barely aware of . . . This is one of the best places to learn trust and surrender. You really just have to let go if you’re going to enjoy yourself here.

“It’s a sure cure for depression,” she says. “You can’t be on one of those slides and feel sorry for yourself.”

Solange’s date nods his head in agreement. “It’s like electro-shock treatment,” he says.