Something Wicked this Way Floats. Witch Paddles Are on the Rise Across the Country.

Witches paddle on the Hudson River in Sleepy Hallow, New York.

You might have seen them before, packs of people dressed like Stevie Nicks climbing onto paddleboards and rowing out onto the water like a cast of Hogwarts extras. Witch paddles, as they’re now generally referred to, began like all great unhinged ideas, conjured on a whim.

What turned this spectacle into a full-blown spooky-season phenomenon? A few conveniently timed birthdays.

Annette Ausseresses, the agreed-upon originator of the concept, had a tradition with her girlfriends of celebrating their Halloween-adjacent birthdays in witchy fashion. “The first year was dressing up as witches and going hiking,” she says. “The next, we had paddleboards, so we said, let’s dress up as witches and go paddling.” It was October 2013, the place was Morro Bay, California, and unbeknownst to them, they’d just unleashed a fury.

So how did their little coven become a nationwide Halloween craze? Ausseresses credits two things: a local news story that went global on the Associated Press wire, and a woman in Portland who caught wind of the idea and decided to stir up some trouble of her own.

Enter Ginny Kauffman. She saw some pictures of Ausseresses’ event and brought the concept to the Rose City in October 2017, taking to the Willamette River with just a couple of friends. But as word spread, Portland’s sorceresses began multiplying.

“People loved it because, well, this is Portland,” she says about a city whose slogan is “Keep Portland Weird.” By 2019, the Halloween gathering had grown to 200 participants (men and kids included), and copycats began materializing elsewhere.

Then came COVID, a gloomy timestamp for even the most resilient of enchantresses. When the world finally emerged from isolation, Kauffman says the appeal of dressing like a witch or warlock and doing something gloriously ridiculous was even more powerful to resist. Witch paddles spread even further across the country, proving that Ausseresses had unwittingly tapped into something bigger than a Halloween gag: a desperate desire to play.

“For me, the best part is watching the joy that everybody has from it,” Ausseresses says. “I know that sounds super corny, but it really is. People are out there, they’re meeting their friends, they are smiling, they have fun.”

These days, though, Kauffman no longer leads the charge for Witches on the Willamette. What began as a casual paddle eventually became too much of a liability to continue, she shares. Now, she keeps her witchery to private paddles with friends. Alas, no one has yet stepped forward to inherit her broomstick, leaving Portland’s once-mighty coven without a head witch.

However, Ausseresses’ event is still going strong down in California, along with plenty of other pointy-hatted armadas of men, women, and children, from mountain lakes to the Southern rivers.

Here’s witch paddles across the country where you can get very SUPerstitious this year.

Morro Bay Witches and Warlocks paddle is the O.G. of these hex-cellent events, and you can expect to see founder Annette Ausseresses and many of her original crew out on the water once again, getting into double, double toil and trouble .

“We don’t require that you have a paddleboard,” Ausseresses says. “You can do it in a canoe, a kayak, an outrigger. The local dragon boat team does it in the dragon boat.” A couple of years ago, even Ausseresses’ 93-year-old mom, who passed away last month, took to the waters. “I rented an electric boat and took her out on that,” she says.

Around 500 people are expected for this casual “meet-up” event.

Each October, more than 600 costumed participants and curious onlookers descend on the Bridgewater Channel near Lake Havasu’s London Bridge for a wonderfully weird day on the water. What started as a local lark has become a full-blown pageant, with live entertainment, elaborate costumes, and plenty of photo-worthy magic. Register early via WitchPaddleHC.com and come ready to join the spellbound scene.

Anna Marie Madai of Littleton, Colorado, held her first Witch Paddle at Chatfield Reservoir on a lark in 2021. “Eighty people showed up,” she recalls. With eerie tree stumps jutting from the water and everyone having a blast, she decided to do it again.

The next year, she put the event on Facebook, and got a message from the park. “They said, ‘You have 14,000 people interested in your event. You can’t hold that here.’”

Madai partnered with Sacred Sister Collective, a 501(c)(3) , and found a bigger home for her multiplying coven. This year’s October 17 paddle is already sold out with 500 participants, but spectators can join the ghoulish gathering for free.

If ever there were a place destined for a witch paddle, it’s Sleepy Hollow, New York, a famous setting for the classic ghost story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow . Tara Scheller, owner of Rivertown SUP and Yoga , launched the Hudson River SUP Witchfest in 2020 after hearing about Witches on the Willamette in Portland, Oregon.

“It was COVID, so I just reached out to my small paddle community and asked if they wanted to paddle on the Hudson,” Scheller says. Sixteen people showed up. The next year, 50 did.

Then things got appropriately supernatural. After moving to Kingsland Point Park, the event ballooned to more than 100 paddlers, 50 vendors, and 1,200 spectators. “It was madness, but a good learning experience,” Scheller says.

These days, the paddle has become a full-blown festival, and Sleepy Hollow’s spooky bona fides are enough to lure witches from well beyond the Hudson Valley. “I’ve met people who have driven in from Ohio, Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey,” Scheller says.

The Macon Witches Float started with a cause behind the costumes. The event originally raised money for Macon Periods Easier , a nonprofit working to combat period poverty by supplying menstrual products to local schools and agencies while making menstruation a little less taboo.

But as more costumed paddlers took to the Ocmulgee River each year, the event outgrew its volunteer roots. Visit Macon and Ocmulgee Outdoor Expeditions stepped in to keep it afloat.

“We still offer collection opportunities for products to benefit the event’s original cause,” says Marisa Rodgers, vice president and chief marketing officer of Visit Macon. Today, the float has become one of Macon’s signature October events, joining a whole calendar of spooky-season happenings around the city. Paddleboarders, canoers, and kayakers are all welcome.

Florida’s iconic Weeki Wachee Springs State Park may be best known for its dazzling mermaid shows, but on Halloween morning, another magical species takes to the water.

The Weeki Wachee Witches Paddle sends a flotilla of pointy-hatted paddlers down the famously clear Weeki Wachee River, with witches trading broomsticks for kayaks and stand-up paddleboards. Breakfast is included, and festivities begin at 8 a.m, sharp.

Costumes are strongly encouraged, there’s a best-dressed contest, and every paddler (kids included) earns a medal simply for joining the witching hour. Registration is $40 for those bringing their own kayak or paddleboard and $60 with equipment rental through the park’s kayak outfitter. Reservations can be made through Weeki Wachee Springs State Park or by phone, and space is limited.

When the pandemic forced Maari Falsetto to close Inner Alchemy , her West Seattle spiritual practice, paddleboarding became an outlet. It also reinforced something she’d been thinking about during lockdown: “People need people.”

Falsetto began organizing socially distanced outdoor gatherings, from sound baths to kundalini yoga. Then she heard about a witch paddle on Orcas Island and decided to conjure one of her own.

Today, her annual Witches, Warlocks, and Wizards Paddle on Puget Sound draws about 50 participants, including kids. It’s freewheeling and BYOB, bring your own board.

Kinsey Gidick is a travel writer based in Scottsville, Virginia, where she lives in a 282-year-old house with a Civil War general buried in the front yard. Which is to say, she’s no stranger to the supernatural. While reporting this story on the nationwide phenomenon of witch paddles, she tracked down the women responsible for putting covens on the water. She’s unsure whether she’s covering a trend or being recruited into a cult, but she’s already picked out her hat.