Mile 601.5 - LBD 601.5 - 598 Smith Point Sandbar

LBD 601.5 - 598 Smith Point Sandbar

Smith Point Sandbar is high enough and large enough paddlers will discover it to be the best camping in this area of the river and should be included in any itinerary. Of course, if the timing is off, or if it is very windy, you might chose elsewhere. As with most big bars Smith Point is wide open and subject to any winds, storms and other caprices of the weather.

The most protected campsites are top end around mile 600 along or near the base of the three rocky dikes which radiate outwards. As you paddle past the Smith Point Light 601.5 follow the tongue of water into Scrubgrass Bend and then start angling in Eastward LBD towards the giant sandbars you will see emerging from around the inside of the bend. Pick and choose your place. There are three miles of beach around Smith Point at medium water and more at low water. You will always find good landings and campsites on this bar all of the way up to flood stage. As the water rises above 35HG the choices become narrowed down to the sites found along the tallest plateau of sand that straddles the sandbar along the left bank behind the dike field. But don't fret over finding something. This is a gigantic landscape: now instead of three miles of beach landings you now have two miles to chose from! At 40HG the bar is reduced further, to maybe one mile of beach, and then goes completely under around flood stage.

If you don't find any camping to your liking top end continue around the perimeter of the sandbar to the bottom end for other choices. You will paddle past the shoaling area around the ends of the dikes below mile 600 and still hugging LBD look for the last possible landings & campsites along the abruptly falling bottom end of the Smith Point Sandbar. At low water this giant sandbar ends in a steep cut bank of sand thirty to forty feet tall. Its a long climb up a slippery sand cliff reaching the top at low water, but the view up into the White and down the Old Channel of the White is rewarding. After unloading gear be sure to remove your vessel completely out of the water and secure it well above river level plus three feet higher (at least). As the powerful tows begin their difficult ascent up the strong waters coming downstream around Scrubgrass they have to gun their engines full throttle and the resulting waves can wash high up the bank, sometimes as high as three feet above river level, and will immediately upset and pull back anything within their grasp. Of course as the river climbs higher this steep bluff becomes more user-friendly, eventually water reaches sandy floor height (around 35HG) and then overtops the whole bottom end.

After dark paddlers enjoy an excitement unique to the Mississippi River. While you are enjoying the beautiful skies and moody waters of sunset and your day is coming to a peaceful conclusion, on board the tows a much different scene is taking place. The crews are changing places and preparing for the overnight travel. While one shift is going on break the other is getting fueled up with plates of downhome southern cooking and gulping cups of coffee to help stay awake through the long dark cold night ahead. Everyone from the pilot to the engineer to the oilman to the deck hand switches places with the other man responsible. Tows run 24/7 not stopping for Christmas or any other man-made occasions. On the tow its go, go, go, go. As the tows continue running the river they fill the watery night with the colorful reflections of their running lights as they wend their way up and down the channel, reds starboard, greens port, incandescent blue midship forward, a vertical line of soft yellows behind. Using these colors the knowledgeable paddler can determine exactly what side of the tow they are seeing and which way it is headed, as could any mariner. At times tow pilots throw on their powerful stabbing spotlights which can illuminate a riverbank a mile away and make strange dancing white-light reflections whenever their lights cross your camp. After a few hours however the excitement wears off and then later as you lay in your tent and your sleep is interrupted by repeated explosions of brilliance it can become startling and then downright annoying. This is just life on the Mississippi, not as Twain knew it, but as we experience it today. Suggestion: don't place your tent directly in the line of fire, such as below the channel signage, or at the end of long straight stretches of river.

A funny incident took place at this location one night with a group of people I was camped with. After landing everyone had chosen campsites. One young couple walked far down the main ridge a half mile or so for some privacy. After an enjoyable campfire supper and an evening of star-watching and story-telling, river-worn but happy paddlers wandered off for a incomparable sleep on the banks of the river. Eventually I did the same. Later I was awoken out of my sleep by the sound of running footsteps -- or better said, the feeling of the vibration of running coming through the sand. I could feel it coming under me. It was the man of the couple and he was out of breath. He had run half mile from their tent site because they had seen spotlights stabbing the darkness from across the sandbar. He was sure that it was the police looking for prisoners who had escaped from the state farm! They knew that we were fairly close to the largest penal colony in the North America, Parchman Penitentiary (30 miles to the East). Evidently this impressionable couple had seen too many movies like Brother Where Art Thou and jumped to immediate conclusions thereof about being in the south on a humid southern summer night! Some people pack pistols or other firepower due to fears like this but I never have -- and have never had cause for one.

At low to medium water levels this giant bar is connected to the forested mainland beyond (Concordia Hunting Camp) and periodically ATVs scurry across the bar, usually during hunting season. Above 30 water starts filling in a series of lowland holes and wetlands behind the central plateau and the sandbar becomes an island, as the water continues rising above 35 a spectacular back channel becomes accessible to the paddler, keep reading below.