112 - 109 LBD Twelve Mile Point Greenspace

This Chem Corridor Greenspace is the thinnest yet encountered on the Lower Mississippi, but provides all of the buffer necessary to achieve the “river illusion,” that peaceful sensation that only a paddler can enjoy. Even though this Greenspace is a thin slice of batture woods only a 100 feet wide (or less), the downstream canoeist or kayaker (or paddleboarder) feels all of the peace and harmony achieved in the wildest of river places. Most of the greenery is found along the East Bank (LBD) below the sand dune at 111.8 LBD. Good picnicking or camping up to 10NO can be located along the way, especially at 110LBD, but also at 12 Mile Point 109 LBD.

110 - 109 LBD Twelve Mile Point

Last remote camping/picnicking above New Orleans, but only in low/med water levels. As you round Avondale Bend in low or medium water levels, you will notice several small skinny dunes East Bank -- hung along the inside of the bend at Twelve Mile Point. These narrow shelves are the last remote camping/picnicking above New Orleans (in low/med water levels). But you will probably have to make landing on rip-rap for access, unless you hit it at exactly the right water level (around 8NO gage). If you stop here, lift or slide your vessel completely out of the water and onto the sandy shelf (or risk capsize in waves from fast-passing ships!). In higher water levels you could find shelter in the woods above. Several possible campsites or picnic sites will be found along high bank, with the levee not too far through the woods behind. You won’t find any possible landings below the point (at 108.5 LBD) where a long line of fleeted barges begins.

Elmwood/Bridge City/Jefferson Industrial Reach

As you come around 12-Mile Point and approach the Huey P. Long US 90 Bridge the momentary quiet preceding the Avondale Bend ends and paddlers will again be squeezed into the middle of the channel by bank-to-bank activity on both sides of the river, including wharves, cranes, stevedoring, fleeting, graineries and anchorages, especially busy around the Litton Industries Docks No’s 1, 2, 3 and 4 which are all strung along this right bank descending from 107.6 - 106.6 RBD just above the Huey P. Long Bridge. Watch carefully for freighter traffic as you come around Nine-Mile Point, a particularly tight bend of the river.