Intro: Greenville to Vicksburg:
Intro: Greenville to Vicksburg:
Welcome to the 2013 update to the Rivergator: Paddlers Guide to the Lower Mississippi River!
This section describes the big river as it flows through the Lower Delta, the last 100 miles of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, from Greenville, the Queen City of the Delta, to Vicksburg, the Gibraltar of the South, at the confluence of the Yazoo River. After leaving the industrious Greenville Harbor and paddling past Warfield Point you’ll quickly round Vaucluse Bend and be propelled under the new Greenville bridge and go flying past some grain elevators in Arkansas. And then you’ll quickly return to the wilds of the Lower Mississippi with nothing but forested islands, big river and big open skies as your scenery. Of course there’ll be towboats and fishermen and a few more granaries and refineries along the way. But it’s amazing how quickly the city disappears into the wilderness. You’ll camp on beaches the size and feel of Caribbean beaches, and paddle through narrow chutes with lush overhanging willows and cottonwoods. You’ll be hemmed in by revetment and dikes in one place, and then released into long open sections where the main channel meanders through enormous swaths of floodplain forest and riverbank wetlands still connected directly to the river. The river and its floodplain create an incredibly vibrant ecosystem of bayous, sluices, chutes, pools, and back channels overflowing with wildlife, notably at Cracraft Cutoff and Paw Paw Chute.
Intro: Greenville: Water Levels
For this portion of Rivergator Trail we refer to the Greenville Gauge which we’ll denote as “GG.” Further downstream (at Lake Providence) we’ll switch over to the Vicksburg Gauge which we’ll denote as “VG.” For daily river levels and weekly forecasts, go to
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lmrfc/?n=lmrfc-mississippiandohioriverforecast
Water levels according to the Greenville Gauge
Low Water = 0 to 25 GG
Medium Water = 25 to 38 GG
High Water = 38 to 47 GG
Flood Stage = 48 GG and above
GG = Greenville Gauge
Flood Stage Warning: above 48 GG paddlers are advised to stay off the river. Limited access. Most landings and approach roads will be underwater. Most islands will be gone. No easy camping. All sandbars will be covered. Fast waters with many hazards. All islands and landings will be surrounded by flooded forests full of snags, strainers, sawyers and all other dangerous conditions associated with floodwater moving through trees. Docks, wharves, dikes and any other man-made objects will create strong whirlpools, violent boils, and fast eddies. Towboats will create large waves. The Rivergator will not describe the river and its islands at any levels above flood stage.
Introduction: Greenville to Vicksburg
After leaving Greenville the Mighty Mississippi flows south in giant meandering loops through the verdant and fantastically fertile Mississippi Delta. This is the land that gave birth to the Delta Blues, and was once the cotton kingdom of the world. The blues musician Muddy Waters was born near Rolling Fork, and a thriving blues and arts scene survives in Greenville. There are no tributaries along this 100-mile stretch of river, as result the water gets cleaner and cleaner the further downstream you go from Greenville (no point-source pollution), and by the time you enter Vicksburg the sandbars are almost completely free of trash and the water at its cleanest since leaving the state of Minnesota! The Mississippi floodplain forest was once America’s Amazon, but millions of acres of trees have been removed for farmland. Remnants of the deep woods are protected along the river between the levees by the extreme rises and falls of the big river. Giant oxbow lakes are found on either side of the river, notably Chicot Lake (largest oxbow in North America), and the oxbow congregations found at Possum Chute/Old River and Chotard/Albermerle/Eagle Lake/Paw-Paw. The river carves elegant C-curves and S-curves through deep woods as it meanders through Kentucky Bend, Sarah’s Chute, Marshall Cut-Off and then wanders down through its deepest woods above the mouth of the Yazoo River, the “River of Death.” Here the big river engulfs mind-boggling swaths of muddy landscapes as it is forced south-southeasterly by Macon Ridge, which parallels the Mississippi out of Arkansas into Louisiana. The big river slams headlong into the towering Vicksburg bluff at the Yazoo confluence and here ends the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. Possible alternate route through Paw Paw Chute for expert paddlers only. Vicksburg is the best place for resupply and reconnoiter. Paddlers will want to visit the Mississippi River Museum located inside the MV Mississippi towboat, as well as the National Military Park, and Vicksburg’s other offerings.
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