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This is the 2nd fleeting area you will encounter below Baton Rouge. Although best line of travel is towards East Bank following the Missouri Bend Pointway, and you probably won’t be paddling anywhere near this fleeting area, it’s good to be aware of. If you haven’t already,
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As you paddle past the Port Allen Lock watch for barge fleeting right bank descending (West Bank) between miles 228.4 and 226. Inspect your 2007 USACE Mississippi River Maps: you can see this fleeting area as a rectangle formed by dashed grey lines. The best line of travel is
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The Intercostal Waterway cuts through Port Allen and heads southwestward towards Morgan City, and from there points further west along the Louisiana and then Texas coastlines. You have to lock through the levee to get to the canal. There are a number of options from here on down to the
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Best camping and picnicking in the Greater Baton Rouge area, with dry sand on south side up to bank full 30BR. Sandy picnic or campsites are found on either side of the entrance to the Intracostal Waterway (ICWW), with the tallest and biggest on the south side, and a smaller
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The Red River flows in from the north and together with water drawn off the Mississippi forms the beginning of the Atchafalaya River. The Red and the Mississippi meet four miles upstream. As you know, there is no flow through the Lower Old River Channel you just paddled. The Mississippi
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Meanwhile, on the other side of the Shreve’s Island, the main channel is constricted, often crowded with towboats, and doesn’t seem to flow any faster. If you do take the main channel, watch carefully for tows unexpectedly appearing out of the Lock Channel. Downstream pilots get very cranky,
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The Back Channel of Shreve’s Bar is always flowing strong, and is the route of preference for paddlers, even at low water. And as much for aesthetics as for practicality. Aesthetically it is always more pleasing to paddle the back channel -- where the natural banks, big trees and
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The river circumscribes Angola State Penitentiary in an almost perfect semi-circle, with a radius of four miles, the center being the headquarters of the prison complex. Using simple geometry, C=2piR this would give a circumference of approximately 25 miles, divided by 2 for a half circle = 12.5 miles,
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Once safely below the Auxiliary Intake channel of the Old River Control Structure, you can find a very tall bluff of sand, the tallest in the area, which makes the best highwater camping available all the way up to flood stage (and beyond). At low water, this giant sand dune
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In case things seem confusing here, dear paddlers, please know that a new navigation channel has been made around the Avoca Island Bend which is not visible in the 2012 USACE charts. This new channel stays LBD instead of the old channel marked on the charts which shows it to
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We followed “Dean’s Route” in the spring of 2015; we entered the back channels on the morning of the first day, and reached Morgan City around noon on the 3rd day. Here is how it went: we paddled first down Jake’s Bayou, and then Bloody Bayou, which dead-ends
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The Atchafalaya River bounces through a series of riverbends in this 10-mile stretch, with extensive woods lining the river along the East Bank (left bank descending). If you need to stop for lunch or to make a camp, the left bank descending will be the more peaceful choice. The Morganza