St. Louis to Caruthersville — Introduction

Preamble: I first explored this stretch of river on a 5-month raft trip that began after my high school graduation in 1982. My best friend and I decided that we had enough of traditional schooling, and much to the dismay of our guidance counselors we scuttled all college plans and instead built a raft in the Great North Woods of Minnesota and started downstream for the learning adventure of a lifetime. The river became my teacher, and the big floodplain valley my center for higher education. Fast forward 30 years and I am still on the Mississippi River, and still as much entrenched in it as I was back then.

At present I am writing the Rivergator from my canoe base (called the “cave”) in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Clarksdale is located in the great floodplain of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, birthplace of the Delta Blues, and one of the wildest stretches of the big river along its length. I am hoping to share with you some of the secrets for safe paddling so that you can too can enjoy its wildness! The Rivergator was born on that raft trip of 1982/83, and has evolved through three decades of other expeditions, the carving of dozens of dugouts and stripper voyageur canoes, the formation of a canoe company, the training of dozens of guides and hundreds of young apprentices, and lots of exploration and documentation.

Rivergator contributor Mike Clark has been exploring the Confluence and the Middle Miss for over a decade (after canoeing the entire length of the river in 2001). He is considered the expert on running the Chain of Rocks. In 2002 and in 2006 Mike Clark and I spent 5 months exploring the entire Missouri River in dugout canoes, the second time as engages in Scott Mandrell’s “Then & Now” Lewis & Clark Re-enactment. Our experiences paddling dugouts to the confluence and over the Chain of Rocks are here in the Rivergator .

In 2009 Mike Clark and I guided German film-makers from St. Louis to Caruthersville (and on down to the Gulf of Mexico) on a giant raft (actually a “canoe-ma-raft,” a 16 x 30 platform supported by 2 voyageur canoes as pontoons). Big Muddy Mike has made dozens of other Middle Miss voyages after the 2001 formation of his Big Muddy Adventures, which is based near North Riverfront Park in St. Louis (including a “Huck ‘n’ Jim expedition” where he paddled it all after dark just like Huck and Jim did -- this is not recommended).

Rivergator contributor Mark River Peoples was born and raised along the Mississippi River in St. Louis and East St. Louis. After a career in pro football, Mark River is now a full-time guide on the Lower Mississippi River, and writes a blog, appropriately called the “Mark River Blog.” Former Navy Chief and Rivergator Contributor Braxton Barden is a full time river guide and photographer with the Quapaw Canoe Company. Mark River and Braxton Barden explored St. Louis to Cairo one last time in the low water of Nov 2014 to verify everything.

I will share many real-life dramas and river experiences along the way as one of the best way to illustrate the challenges and demands of the big river. Even though it was over 30 years ago, I still remember in vivid detail floating rowing our 12x24 foot raft past the Missouri River Confluence, and then down the awful Chain of Rocks Canal, and finally through the last lock & dam and into St. Louis. We continued on down the Middle Miss to the Ohio, and then on down the Lower Miss to the Deep South.

Our odyssey ended in disaster, a raft wreck, as is related in the Rivergator Memphis-to-Helena Section. I am lucky to be alive. The river tried to kill me. But then it turned around and saved me. That journey did something to me. My imagination blossomed with the freedom of the flowing. It turned my eyes to the river, and the health of the free-flowing waters of America. My blood started flowing with the muddy flow of the Mississippi River, and continues flowing to this day now with the Rivergator : Paddler’s Guide to the Middle and Lower Mississippi River.

Confluences: For paddlers there is nothing more fascinating than approaching and then passing the junction of two rivers, especially when the rivers are major rivers coming together from long distances apart. We all walk the land that was once dominated by dinosaurs, and we all breathe the air Caesar breathed. And yet none seem as tangible as the immediate connection a river gives us to the places and people who live on the other end, and in the tributaries and drainages along the way. Although most of St.

Louis straddles short bluffs and terraces 100-200 feet high, it is defined by its waterways. St. Louis sits like the center hub of a giant wheel. You find rivers every direction you go, big rivers, the rivers that define the very heart of America: the Upper Mississippi, the Illinois, and the Missouri. And the Middle Miss gathers them all together and off they go slipping and sliding southward through an elegant, graceful glacial-carved valley ten miles wide. You could depart by canoe from downtown St.

Louis and without leaving water reach such far flung locales as Omaha, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Billings and Bismarck. Of course downstream will eventually bring you to Memphis and then further downstream to New Orleans. In the acceleration of the internal combustion engine most St. Louisans have forgotten their water roots. LaSalle paddled through here, as well as Joliet and Marquette. Later came Lewis and Clark, and then Schoolcraft. St. Louis is actually an island when viewed from the perspective of rivers, encircled by the Missouri, Mississippi and Meramec (and their tributaries like the Bourbeuse).

Big Muddy Mike Clark has proved this four or five times in the past decade. Out of 66 square miles, water covers 6.2% of St. Louis water, most of which is found in the flowing rivers. While the Rivergator is only concerned with the south-flowing water down the Middle Miss from the Missouri Confluence, it opens the imagination to entertain the watery geography of the biggest city in the heart of America. Big River Crossroads For instance, by the reality of geography all expeditions must pass this Big River Crossroads.

The Missouri River Trail and the Mississippi River Trail are the obvious biggies and create the N-S and E-W axis of the Crossroads. The Lewis & Clark Trail extends this axis to the Pacific (via the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia) and into the Alleghenies via the Ohio and Middle Mississippi (if you follow Capt. Lewis’ start place: Pittsburgh). The Joliette & Marquette route adds in the Great Lakes via the Wisconsin River, and creates a new end place at the mouth of the Arkansas River where the two Jesuit Priests turned around after deciding they had gone far enough down the river to determine it went to the Gulf (and into hostile Spanish territories!).

Lewis & Clark and Joliet & Marquette also exemplify the upstream and downstream possibilities. But they are following the Native peoples, who used the rivers as their highways, going upstream or downstream as their needs demanded. 99% of modern day paddlers go downstream, but you can of course do both! You could paddle UP the Mississippi from New Orleans. To my knowledge only Verlen Kruger has completed the upstream challenge, although at publishing time one group of 6 paddlers have started their way up the Mississippi en route to the Arctic (Jan 2015, the “Rediscovering North America” Expedition).

You would learn so much more about the river having done so. Upstream paddlers have to hug the banks. You get close to all of the wildlife and interesting topography you otherwise miss from the middle of the river going downstream. Other expeditions add the Illinois route to the Northeast. And a tiny fraction add in other smaller tributaries like the St. Croix, Meramec, Iowa, Wabash, Red, or others, and customize their own creative expedition routes according to their interests and personal connections along the way.

For instance this year (2014) one particularly creative adventurer came down the Missouri, followed the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya Exit, and then turned up the Red to paddle upstream into the Southern Plains and conclude the trip at hometown Dallas, Texas. More and more paddlers are turning down the Atchafalaya, and with good reason: you enjoy the best of the deep south’s cypress/tupelo gum forests and avoid Cancer Alley, all of the industry and chaos of the Greater Port of New Orleans. A surprising number of paddlers follow the 6,000+ mile Grand Loop (Circumnavigating all of Eastern United States via the Great Lakes, St.

Lawrence Seaway, Intercoastal Waterway, and the Mississippi). A small fraction of paddlers come down the Mississippi, turn up the Ohio, and enter the Tennessee, to lock through over to the Tombigbee and follow that river down to Mobile Bay. That is the route most powerboats follow to the Gulf. But unless you like flat water, you’re going to want to stick to the Mississippi and let the Rivergator be your guide. Further downstream the Ohio River Trail adds in many more permutations to the possible routes, adding in the Cumberland and Tennessee, and many others, but we’ll speak of this later when get down to this confluence, further along in the Rivergator .

The Grand Adventure Every year more canoeists, kayakers and paddleboarders set off down the big river on life-changing adventures. After canoeing the Mississippi in 2014, Amy Lauterbach wrote a very useful synopsis with data gathered by John Sullivan: “As Americans, we feel the Mississippi River is our river. It is one of the world’s grandest rivers, and belongs to no one but itself, so powerful and pervasively it commands its valley and surrounding floodplain. Mark Twain put it on the map as an American literary landmark, but it has been woefully bypassed by paddlers and outdoor lovers in the last century.

It flows through diverse physical and cultural landscapes. The economic impact of its barge traffic is enormous. The river is a magnificent juxtaposition of intense commerce and intense isolation. The trip is easily achievable in a single season, even at a leisurely pace. In 2014 there were at least 70 people who set out to paddle the Mississippi River from Lake Itasca to the Gulf. At least 50, and likely more, completed the trip. John Sullivan attempts to maintain a list and publishes it on the Mississippi River Paddlers Facebook page.

Paddling the river is a significant undertaking, yet the trip is not complicated. Many millions of people live within 100 miles of the river, yet few people make the journey. In 2013, 658 people summited Mount Everest, 700+ thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, and perhaps 50 paddled the Mississippi River from its source to the Gulf of Mexico. Because few people paddle the entire river, it still has the feeling of a grand adventure.” The Mississippi River Trail “Goin’ down the Mississippi’s something people want do.

They’re gonna do it. That’s the way it is in this country…” (Capt. Ware, The Elroy , 1953) The North-South journey down the main stem Mississippi Upper-Middle Lower has become the water equivalent of the Appalachian Trail. Like the Appalachian Trail, (or the Pacific Crest Trail, or the Continental Divide Trail) the Mississippi River Trail connects the continent North and the South along the wild lands straddling a distinct and major geographic feature. Every year the Mississippi River Trail grows in popularity with more and more paddlers committing themselves to the challenge.

There is a certain amount of attrition, for sure. Many paddlers start out from one of the headwaters, and few actually paddle the whole thing. It is a long and demanding challenge, normally requiring months and months of hard paddling. You could paddle it in one month if you paddled 20 hours a day and the water was high and flowing fast. You could do it in 2 months if you were a monster paddler who felt no pain. But most paddlers seem to take 3 months or longer. This is the most humane approach, and the timeline that will yield the most rewards for the effort made.

The Mississippi prepares source start paddlers lovingly, and gently teaches them the ways of the river and river commerce incrementally from the Minnesota marshes downstream. We call this the “School of Hard Knocks,” or the “2,300 Mile School of River Navigation.” 2,300 Mile School of River Navigation You could start out as a beginner paddler in the marshy Mississippi River headwaters of Lake Itasca and be nurtured by the river in the ways of water flow as you glide along through wetlands and braided channels and across ponds and small lakes.

This is elementary school, where you learn the elements of the river and your vessel passing down it. 500 miles downstream in Minneapolis you would have gained a good feel for the sometimes confusing ways of river currents around its bends with boils, shoals and whirlpools. Take that knowledge and graduate to commerce as you paddle through St. Anthony Lock and Dam and are introduced to towboats and barges. Small tows at first, one or two at a time, the pilots tend to be friendlier in the North. Slowly and gently the river teaches you how to paddle amongst tows and safely past industrial sites.

The current is slow, the tows small (but getting larger) as you continue downstream. If you get as far as the Mel Price Lock and Dam in St. Louis you are doing something right! You have learned to navigate shipping channels amongst medium tows with up to 12 barges at a time. Time to graduate to college, the Middle Mississippi, the free-flowing muddy waters with even bigger tows, now 30 barges at a time. Getting through the dangerous St. Louis Harbor is a crash course of what’s to come below Baton Rouge.

If you continue down the Middle Miss, the next advancement is at Cairo with the biggest tows on the entire Mississippi, up to 48 barges at a time. Big 3-screw tows pushing upwards of 10,000 horsepower churn the big river into rolling mounds of 8-foot tall standing waves that ricochet back and forth across the channel creating a maelstrom of currents and crashing waves. But you can handle this. You are now advanced degree. Challenging for sure, but the river has given you all the skills you need to make it through.

If you make it 700 miles downstream to Baton Rouge you are offered the very last grade in the school of river navigation, and that is paddling down the busiest inland port in the world with ocean-going freighters! If you have taken your time and studied your real-life lessons, you will be fine. The river has prepared you for this. Add on everything you have learned up to this point, and paddle down the last 235 miles to the Gulf of Mexico for your doctoral graduation in big river navigation with a splash-down in the salty waters of the Caribbean!

The Middle/Lower Mississippi River Trail Welcome to the longest free-flowing river in the continental United States! And welcome to the longest water trail, your guide: the Rivergator . Everything changes at St. Louis. No more locks and Dams. No more picturesque towns crowding the pretty banks. The good news for paddlers is that it is all free-flowing water all the way to the Gulf. Free flowing, wild, and unruly. Towns have to be built far from the river’s edge, or get flooded. It’s a long way between landings and bridges.

No more casual paddling. You have to pack and prepare for the worst, and adopt the attitude of survival paddling. “There’s also a dream-like geometry to things. The shorelines are more distant. The air itself is different. Blow St. Louis you become aware that you are no longer in the North. On the northern river what you see is what you get. On the southern river there are intimations of something beyond what the eye sees.” (Charles Dee Sharp) Advanced paddlers only on the Middle/Lower Miss. Sure, beginners could start at the headwaters and learn as they go along.

But just like you wouldn’t start a toddler in High School, beginners would not do well learning to paddle at the Missouri River Confluence. Paddlers putting in on the big river for the first time in St. Louis will have to enroll in the Chain of Rocks/St. Louis Harbor Crash Course. No beginners here. The river would not be so kindly as it was up in the great North Woods. You should be at least an intermediate paddler with experience in turbulent big volume waters and paddling amongst big commercial vessels.

Read the Rivergator , and remember the three Rs: 1) Make sure you have the right kind of skills/experience, 2) the right vessel/equipment and 3) make the right preparations to get through the St. Louis harbor. Otherwise, your experience will literally be a “crash course.”

St. Louis is the River Hub of America: St. Louis spins around and around like the hub of a giant water wheel of many water passages, the rivers flowing together and pouring over the water wheel from far-flung distances in almost every direction of the compass. Whichever way you turn, a long river is coming in from somewhere far away. The Missouri River leads westward to the Rocky Mountains. The Upper Mississippi leads north to Great North Woods. The Illinois spoke leads north-eastward to Lake Michigan.

The Meramec leads southwesterly into the heart of the Ozarks. Using a little artistic freedom, you can envision the Ohio River leading east to Appalachia. (The Ohio doesn’t come into St. Louis, but in the big picture it comes in close). All of these rivers come together and confluence along the central hub of rivers, the Middle Mississippi, and then the final and decidedly most grandiose and bellicose of all waterways, the Lower Mississippi flows grandly southward, the accumulation of all rivers in the big heart of America, the great artery of the lifeblood of this quadrant of mother earth.

The journey begins with a bang. Within twenty miles on the Missouri River Confluence you will 1) paddle on three major rivers 2) over (or around) the only waterfall on the big river, 3) under its most famous bridge, 4) by its most famous monument, 5) alongside its largest population center, and 6) through its most dangerous waters (until you reach Baton Rouge). You’ll pass by everything so quickly you could never absorb it all. Hopefully it will go smoothly. The bad news is that it is very dangerous and very demanding, and for expert paddlers only.

More paddlers and motorboaters have died in this particular stretch of river than any other. The Chain of Rocks is a wild whitewater feature in the middle of the big city, and has claimed the lives of more than one unprepared paddler. The good news is that you will enjoy a ten mile stretch with no towboats or commercial traffic, with public parks and lots of incredible views of the big city and its architectural wonders and industrial sprawls. Also, to your benefit, a legendary guide appropriately nicknamed “Big Muddy” and a river company known as Big Muddy Adventures is there to assist you if you so desire.

Owner Big Muddy Mike Clark has become something of a gatekeeper at the Chain of Rocks for long distance expeditions coming down the Missouri and Upper Mississippi to or through St. Louis. He will give your vessel a pre-Coast Guard inspection, and will provide valuable assistance as to what you will need from here on downstream, and what you should leave behind. If he takes a liking to you he might accompany you over the waterfall. Otherwise, you would do well to hire him for the service, or expert advice as to where and when to run.

He can also supply you with whatever you need or are missing from the list of essentials for the journey downstream including everything from