Mile 281.0 - Miles 281-278: Morgans Bend (Iowa Point)

281 - 278 Morgans Bend (Iowa Point)

This isolated bend swirling 180 degrees around Iowa Point used to be a good place for paddlers to stop along its perimeter for highwater camping, but in recent years has degenerated into a series of busy hunting camps that you’ll want to avoid. In low or medium water watch for and avoid big tows going into the flanking maneuver around these tight bends.

If it wasn’t for the Loess Bluffs the Mississippi would probably never reach the Gulf of Mexico. After flipping directions around Iowa Point, the Mississippi seems intent on running due East, as if it’s trying to reach the Atlantic instead. All rivers like to wander through their landscape as far as they can wander. Like a child exploring its boundaries, flowing water is well known as the ultimate example of the creative work of the creator. Even big rivers. Mathematicians can’t describe them, physicists can’t predict them, even the best hydrologists ultimately yield normal concise scientific understanding to the employment of vague chaotic patterns and turbulence theory for description. t would probably be best to learn about rivers through observation, like Leonardo DaVinci, who explored the unexplainable with his pen & ink studies. The Mississippi is especially prone to the wanderlust spirit by nature. Its muddy substrate seems to encourage this kind of extreme meandering. After revolving through Morgan’s Bend, the big river runs around St. Maurice Island and continues Eastward to St. Francisville, and would keep on driving onward towards the rising sun if not for the Mississippi Loess Bluffs, here gently sloping towards the floodplain from Blues Highway 61.