Mile 33.0 RBD — Sixty-Mile Point

Low water only. Natural wild shoreline with possible low-water camping and picnicking, but shallow approach. Watch for tides and waves from passing ships.

Partially due to the bend of the river here, and partially due to the Nairn 1973 Flood Crisis, a widening of the batture is found on the West Bank between 34 and 32 RBD, with a wild protected riverbank and a wide wetlands as result. Natural sandbars and mudbars are found along the river’s edge, with viable low water picnic and camp sites Highest sandy spots found near mile marker 33. If the water is up to the tree look for open sandy ridge behind running parallel to river in between walls of willow. Swampy woods behind descending into swampy wetlands covered in water hyacinth. Wide sandy shelf extending far into river at low tide makes for shallow approach. Excellent birding in these wetlands, in no small part due to the prolific insect population here, including hornets. Be very careful around trees, big driftwood logs, or man-made structures for hornet and wasp nests. Also, watch for tough webs woven by the brilliant eye-catching golden-silk spider as you walk through woods. The female are 2-4 times bigger than the males. Also known as the “banana spider” their webs are unusually large, usually from tree-to-tree across big openings, with the hard-to-miss spider in the center, often vibrating madly when they sense intruders. Another exotic spider found here is the and the crab like orb weaver, a clumsy and ungainly arachnid its topside a hard shell of glossy yellow with black dots and 6 distinctive black “thorns” protruding from the outer edge. An incredible variety of insects thrives here from the fantastic to the grotesque, including moths, butterflies, ants (fire ants included of course), and other creepy-crawlers, slitherers, fliers, hoppers and jumpers. The latter include the grotesquely big Eastern Lubber Grasshopper (Romalea guttate). They look like giant purplish-black locusts, some measuring 4 inches long. And they are fat. One of them would make a meal if not for poisonous juices that can knock a bird down. The old timers in the New Orleans area called them “chevals diable” or more commonly today “devil's horses.”