"Paddling beneath the covered bridge, I'm startled to see a moose in the water, bringing up huge mouthfuls of aquatic plants. This thing is big! I can hear it chewing; water drips from its long, homely snout. From the seat of the kayak a moose looks even more massive than it does on land. Seeing one up close and personal is a thrill. Absorbed in its eating, the moose apparenty has not heard, smelled or seen me.

I'm tempted to glide within ten feet and snap a picture of this ungainly and comical looking creature, but I learned my lesson once in Maine when I paddled too close to a bull moose. It let out a guttural grunt and made a false charge, all 1,200 pounds of it. Now I give the moose plenty of room. Finally it spots me and gives a puzzled look."

--Michael Tougias, River Days

In Vermont, wandering around staring at trees during autumn is referred to as "leaf-peeping". Right now, getting into the last half of October, is referred to as "post-peak season". And those people who peep post-peak while paddling around on cold rivers on overcast days are referred to as "stark raving".

El Yo and I have been trying for two weeks to get organized for our last paddle of the season on the Winooski River. Last weekend we called Umiak Outfitters to find out how high the river was running. Everyone at Umiak is boat-mad, so you can call and chat about river levels or take-outs or gear, and they will cheerfully tell you everything you need to know and more. They suggested an alternate paddle involving a dam, a village green and something called "River Road". So last Saturday El Yo and I whipped out Mapquest, loaded up the boats and headed out for adventure. But we got a late start, and have you ever tried to find "River Road" in Vermont? 3 hours of driving around 10 square miles and we found River Road, the dam, the green, and that 3pm is too late to begin a 9-mile paddling trip.

Which brings me to this weekend. This morning we got up at a decent hour, called Umiak (all systems go! River at 200 cfs! ), loaded up the boats and headed out.

With the logistics of kayaking, the most important thing to figure out is how to get home. When you have two people and one car, the way it works is this: both people drive to the put-in and unload the boats, leaving one person there. The second person drives to the takeout and parks the car. They then unload the bicycle cleverly packed on the back of the car and bike back to the put-in. The first time we tried this system, it worked really well and, due to a cunning trick of Lake Champlain geography and hidden bike trails, I did a 3-mile technical mountain-biking route to set us up for 7 miles of gorgeous paddling.

Today's route, however, was 9 miles by water, 11 miles by land. Hilly, hilly land. And El Yo's turn to bike. In my defense, I totally tried to talk him out of it. I work out four times a week, while El Yo is an international athlete whose signature event is the office chair. Much to his credit, he made it back to the put-in in one piece and only an hour late. But that meant we'd lost an hour of daylight on an already tight schedule. On the plus side, I got to sit at the put-in and spend two of the most perfect hours of my life, alternately reading and watching the bright sun be gradually overtaken by darker and darker clouds, which moved incredibly swiftly across the valley. The only thing I could hear was the rushing water and the occasional birdsong. Oh, and, from time to time, gunshots. Welcome to Vermont.

Our put-in was just south of the Bolton Dam, north of Waterbury VT. The reason for this is that putting in just north of the Bolton Dam is, in the words of one Umiak guide, "signing up for Vermont Skydiving Adventures. Congratulations." As we pushed off from the sandy beach, the day was gray and overcast, crisp and cool. This light, combined with the dark green of the river water, made me feel like I had been transported into a horror movie. You know, the type of movie with no background music, just the gentle sound of water off of paddles, right up until a zombie shoots out of the water and throttles the paddlers. I suck at leaf-peeping, you can tell.

Just after the dam put-in, our guidebook warned of rapids to be avoided by a lengthy portage. El Yo and I had decided to scout these rapids in case they were runnable. And that plan would have worked beautifully, had we put it into action earlier, like before we were in the rapids. That's an awesome stretch of river. Mostly Class I riffles at low water (such as found at the end of the season), but with two bits of Class II, one involving a big fuck-off rock to get around without tipping over, and one involving boating off a mini-ledge. I have no idea what's wrong with the guidebook. That's so doable.

The other 8 miles of river continued to be stunning, if not exactly flat. The current was choppy and mysterious, pulled and pushed by the many tiny brooks and narrow gorges lining the river edges. There are a great number of islets in the middle of the river, necessitating a choice between routes. I generally go first, having more experience reading rivers. Most of the time I'm right, and most of the time El Yo trusts my judgement and follows the same route. Of note today were the instances neither of these things happened, when I wound up grounded and having to get out and drag my boat to deeper water, and when El Yo wound up mowing down an innocent fly-fisher. Remember: no blood, no foul!

Suffice it to say, no zombies popped out of the water on our trip. And even the half-submerged logs poking out of the surface turned out not to be half-eaten moose corpses springing to life. It did start to rain during the last mile, but only lightly, and that just added to the atmosphere. It strikes me as the most perfect state of harmony to paddle through wind and soft rain above, with deep, cold water beneath, and wet earth all around. The fire, of course, is in your shoulders after nine full miles.

After successfully negotiating the take-out, re-loading the boats and rescuing the bike from the put-in, we headed out along the backroads to Waterbury for beer, nectar of the river. We bopped along the wet, gravelly wooded roads, flipping between NPR and WRUV when suddenly up ahead I saw a huge shape in the road. I am here to tell you that moose are much larger than advertised. They're also mildly absurd, being a monster blob mounted on four toothpicks. In Vermont there's also brainworm, or Mad Moose Disease, which makes our moose super prone to running at cars. And given that a moose's top speed is 35mph, and a car, in reverse, on a wet windy road may or may not be that fast, I yelled at El Yo to hit the brakes. Another car pulled up next to us and we both just sat and watched that moose get organized. It finally lumbered through the woods into the river, and we watched it amble slowly across the current.

I asked El Yo afterwards, and he confirmed my suspicion: he's never read River Days. His plan had been to motor up as close as possible and just start honking. Moose fucking love that. It has such a calming effect on them.

Anyway, we survived. Neither of us were charged by a moose or tipped into freezing current. No one's thighs fell off from bike shock (although stay tuned for an update on that situation tomorrow), and the foliage was stunning beyond words. The zombies will just have to stay put til next year.