Mile 637.0 - (Back Channel Island 63)

LBD 637 (Back Channel Island 63)

Quapaw Landing
N34.262962, W-90.744088

Steep narrow concrete ramp. Sometimes covered with mud & slippery. Quapaw Landing is usable at all water levels. Below 0HG the ramp bottoms out but this is still accessible for the paddler. Around HG 40 the concrete ramp becomes completely submerged -- but this is no problem for paddlers who can easily slide their craft directly off the old levee. During high water the forests surrounding the landing become flooded, the waters spread out and become a clearish-green color as the silt drops out. Paddlers can push off into the calmed waters of the flooded parking lot from the dry ground of the old levee.

Old Levee at Quapaw

The Old Levee predates the newer levee built in the decade following the Great Flood of 1927 and still protects the fields and hunting camps at Burke's Point. Put ins or take outs can be made off the old levee all the way up to flood stage.

Levee Break below Quapaw Landing

N34.263619,W-90.748723

As you paddle out of Quapaw Landing and head downstream, left bank descending is a steep muddy cliff carved by the back channel topped by the old levee, cliff swallows are found nesting here in the warmer seasons and beavers sometimes dig their burrows into the mud below root balls. Approximately 200 yards downstream of Quapaw the old levee was violently broken during the May 2011 flood into a striking landscape of giant free-standing muddy cliff shards, muddy hoo-doos, mud-boulders, and gaping muddy holes, places where the river dove into and then devoured the old levee. The forest is flattened as if broken over by a tornado and giant piles of logs and driftwood are jammed against one last layer of tall courageous trees behind what used to be the old levee. Beyond this single wall of trees the rushing water cascaded through and carved out a canyon in the alluvium -- a giant blue hole. If you pull over LBD and climb to the top of the muddy bank and look through this wall of logs you will see a deep hole the size of several Olympic swim pools. This is a blue hole that was hollowed out during the high water of May 2011. It seems to be bottomless. We are yet to see any evidence of its profoundness, even during low water 2011. The old levee was breached here also during the high waters of 1997 and locals were forced to re-route their access road and re-build the old levee. Two times in two decades. It seems as if the river is hungry for this location.

Great Flood of 2011

During the late Spring 2011 the Lower Mississippi Valley was submerged by the highest volume flood since the high waters of the flood of 1937 (which was higher than the 1927, but not as catastrophic, since higher levees had been built). Water levels in this section of river approached but did not top previous records, but further downstream below the mouth of the Arkansas in places where the Mississippi gets squeezed they did. The levels at Natchez, for instance, were a full two feet higher! Why didn't the waters climb higher in this section? Partly because of the wide floodplain in the Delta, where the extensive forests of the batture, the land between the levees, absorbed some of the flow so that the river spread out as it gradually rose. And partly because of the extra flooding water that was being carried by the Arkansas River which enters further downstream.