With his spiky blonde hair, dark tan and shades, Kevin Robinson looks like a California surfer.

But the 31-year-old hails from the flatlands of Illinois and has lived no closer to the Pacific Ocean than mountainous Missoula.

Still, when a shirtless Robinson peddled up to Brennan’s Wave recently with a surfboard strapped to his cruiser, he looked the part.

Though an outdoor-sports enthusiast, Robinson is also a maverick who bores easily. Kayaking preoccupied his time for nearly a dozen years before the thrill-seeker picked up a less common, less gear-intensive sport: river surfing.

Spotting a surfer on western Montana’s rivers is like bumping into a cowboy with muddy boots and a can of snoose on Rodeo Drive. At the least, it’s cause for a double-take.

Indeed, many times during the past few months, surfers have attracted a crowd to Brennan’s Wave, the whitewater play hole in the Clark Fork River in downtown Missoula.

A heavy winter snowpack and steady spring rains brought the water in the Clark Fork to a level rarely seen in recent years — and kept it there.

And higher flows mean bigger waves.

Which means surf’s up, Missoula.

In the past, only a handful of surfers took to the rivers each year toting sturdy plastic surfboards rather than the fiberglass models used in the ocean. Dodging rocks, jumping snags and scaling steep embankments to reach the water requires a heavy-duty board, said Robinson, who’s been surfing in Montana for more than five years.

But this year, the surge in river surfing came primarily because of kayakers, who temporarily ditched their boat for a board. Throwing tricks and maneuvering in a kayak when the water is super high is difficult, said KB Brown, a professional kayaker who took up surfing a month ago.

Brennan’s Wave transformed from a perfect frothy kayak wave into a light green rolling powerhouse — enough to make kayakers salivate. At its peak, surfers equate Brennan’s to a small ocean wave.

“Because the water was so high, this was the year for river surfing,” said Brown. “The public got to see it a lot.”

By the last week in June, the surfing season at Brennan’s Wave was drawing to a close, but there was still plenty of river-surfing potential in the area: farther downriver at Alberton Gorge and across the stateline in Idaho, on the Lochsa River’s “Pipeline” wave. In all, the river surfing season runs about five weeks.

Growing up, these men learned to surf while vacationing at the beach, but they haven’t spent an extraordinary amount of time in the salty waves. That, along with their ability to read water and understand how rivers work, is invaluable when learning to surf them, Robinson said.

“I left my board at home and already I was crying to my wife about not surfing for 12 days,” said Theo Kracke, 45, a surfer from Santa Barbara, Calif., who was visiting Missoula to attend a wedding. “I was ready to pay someone to loan me a board and wet suit.”

The day before, while crossing the Higgins Avenue Bridge, Kracke did a double-take. Surfing in Montana?

“I was blown away,” said the Californian. “It cracked me up. I’ve been surfing for 30 years in Southern California, but I’ve never done any waves in Montana.”

Fully clothed, Kracke straps the board to his ankle.

“I can’t wait to tell my buddies about this,” he says.

On his first try, Kracke doesn’t make it 5 feet from shore before the current hurls him downstream.

KB looks on with disdain. The regulars at Brennan’s Wave take safety seriously, and this guy has no helmet, life jacket or wetsuit.

“It sends a bad signal,” he said. “I don’t want yahoos down here.”

On his seventh attempt, Kracke manages to maneuver into the wave. He idles, eyes wide, trying to figure out his next step. He positions a knee on the board, but falls. Several tries later, feeling more confident, Kracke manages to get his feet under him.

Back on the shore, hugging himself to keep from shivering, Kracke admits that river surfing is harder than it looks.

“Those Californians,” says Robinson, “don’t know what they’re missing.”

Reporter Chelsi Moy: 523-5260 or or chelsi.moy@missoulian.com.