RIVER FALLS, Wis. — Not unexpectedly, Andy Roth described his first winter kayak trip down the Kinnickinnic River as "chilly." It was Feb. 10.

Now I was watching Roth as he had his first underwater experience on the "Kinni."

Roth was paddling ahead of me when his kayak slipped up against a log and he tried to maneuver it against the current. His paddle became wedged in the log. He gave it a jerk.

A second later, he flipped upside down in the river.

This was a week and half ago and it was a warm day. The Kinni, the famous trout stream that slips through downtown River Falls, is one of the region's best early-spring destinations to wet a paddle and catch a trout. But it's not a place you'd want to swim in mid-March.

Roth came up sputtering, but with a huge grin on his face. "Wow, that felt good!'' he yelped, his voice echoing off the canyon walls. "Invigorating!"

It's always fun to paddle with a good sport. Once we figured Roth wasn't hallucinating, Paige Olson-Lackey and I were chuckling as well. Olson-Lackey owns Kinni Creek Lodge and Outfitters in River Falls and she rents kayaks and rooms to river adventurers. With Roth thoroughly soaked, she calmly ushered us to shore, helped empty the water out of his boat and made sure we weren't missing anything.

"You all right, Andy?" she asked.

"No problem,'' replied the trout-fishing guide from Prescott, Wis. "It's why I bring along a spare set of clothes in a dry bag."

The paddling had been splendid. The river was in fine shape, despite our occasional grinding on shallow gravel bars. We flushed Canada geese, hooded mergansers and wood ducks from their solitary pools and saw the handiwork of a hungry beaver on nearby oaks. We paddled through several clouds of midges, which were of extreme interest to Roth, who brought along his fly-fishing gear.

Anglers were few on the river. And we were the only boaters. The March sun reached into the canyon bottom and melted the last of winter's snowdrifts. Still, there was enough current to force you to pay attention in the fastest rapids. If you were caught daydreaming, you could get swept against a bank and maybe dunked.

Once, our path was partially blocked by a giant downed cottonwood. Instead of portaging, we squeezed flat on our kayaks and slipped under the mammoth tree. One errant move under the tree and you'd likely swamp.

Under our life jackets and the warm sun, we stayed comfortably warm. It helped to keep moving, however. Olson-Lackey and Roth were smart to bring along paddling gloves.

We stopped at a broad bend in the river and slid the kayaks up the sandy shore. Roth strung his fly rod while Olson-Lackey opened the lunch bag, handed out sandwiches and poured hot coffee. I kept an eye on the pool, hoping to see a brown trout slurp up a midge, but the fish were having none of it.

Roth waded into the river and cast a nymph into the current. After about a half dozen casts, he moved downstream and repeated his dissection of the pool. Nothing. He switched flies, got a nibble but snagged the 10-inch trout in the belly. He quickly released it.

"They're just not hungry," he said. "The water is awfully cold." Discouraged, he packed away his rod and we continued down the river.

Olson-Lackey was leading the way when we drifted into a deep pool at the bottom a tall limestone bluff. At water level, there was a shallow cave in the limestone. Calling it her "kayak garage," Olson-Lackey joked around and paddled her kayak partly into the cave, disturbing a large animal inside.

It would be hard to describe the look on a person's face when an unknown animal nearly leaps into their kayak, but Olson-Lackey finally giggled off the encounter after a minute.

"Geez, I must have disturbed a beaver," she said, still wide-eyed.

We finally reached the highlight of our trip. Giant shards of ice clung to a stretch of limestone bluff and we scrambled up the bank to investigate the formation, which was caused by oozing springs in the bluffside. At the foot of the bluff, chunks of ice the size of compact car lay in a heap.

One chunk still gripped the cliff precariously and we approached it cautiously. There was enough room to get behind the ice and look inside the gap between it and the wall of the cliff. Sunlight turned the inside of the ice wall a deep blue and for a moment we imagined we were looking into an Alaskan glacier.

We didn't linger long. You wouldn't want to be under one of those ice chunks if it suddenly dislodged from the cliff.

We jumped into the kayaks again.

"We're not far from the takeout," said Olson-Lackey, and I felt a pain of regret: A perfectly pleasant afternoon on the Kinni was coming to an end.

We loaded the kayaks just as a pair of athletic kids drove up to scope out the river. They had a kayak on their SUV and they quizzed us about river conditions. Soon, they jumped into their vehicle and sped up river to begin their trip.

"They better hurry up," Olson-Lackey said. "There isn't much daylight left to make that trip downriver."

Still, it was good to see such enthusiasm in a pair of young guys. In a few weeks, Olson-Lackey's lodge and bed and breakfast will start booking up with customers from as far away as Chicago. A trip down the Kinnickinnic is a real adventure for out-of-towners who don't live near such treasures.

But even for those of us who visit the Kinnickinnic River regularly, it never disappoints. The water is gin-clear, the scenery perfection and the trout fishing arguably the best in western Wisconsin.

You can even take a dunk in March and get a good laugh out of the experience.

Outdoors editor Chris Niskanen can be reached at cniskanen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5524.

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