Mile 740.0 - 740-737.5 Loosahatchie Bar
740-737.5 Loosahatchie Bar
Loosahatchie Back Channel receives all of the water out of Redman Back Channel -- plus a much bigger flow that comes directly from the main channel of the big river. There is a plug dike at the bottom of Redman Back Channel and a lower island. You can go to either side of the island, but the easiest route is straight down and over the dike, past the little island, and jump into the Loosahatchie Back Channel. Thanks to the above mentioned LMRCC the lower dike is also notched, so that there will be flow even at medium water when the rest of the dike is exposed. When the river is 10-15MG point your canoe towards the v-line and paddle hard through the fast waters pouring through the notch and enjoy the thrill of the resulting waves!
Loosahatchie Back Channel cuts off in low water, now with notching around 5MG. At low water giant sandbars are found top end with endless possibilities for picnicking, hiking and swimming. At medium water there is ample flow through the back channel so that you can make it an easy hour long paddle top to bottom. At high water you could cut that time in half, but why hurry? The point is to enjoy it, not rush through it like you’re driving down Poplar Avenue to get to an appointment. And there is plenty to enjoy. A mile down on river right, the Arkansas bank opens up into an extensive flooded wetlands, open at 20MG, with large pools full of fish and amphibians, flooded grasslands and flooded forests at high water. Publicly owned Loosahatchie Bar is uninhabited, so you can stop anywhere to explore the forests, which appear unbroken from the river, but once you walk anywhere you discover small prairies, narrow depressions where water runs at flood stage, deep woods, open woods, viney woods, willow forests, stands of cottonwoods, sycamores, sweetgums, and other mature hardwood. Carry a compass and watch for poison ivy and wild boar.
The three mile long Loosahatchie Back Channel creates one of those urban river anomalies. You know you’re near a city for all of the jets overhead and vague rumbling and humming from over the trees. But you and the bald eagle you just witnessed snatching a soft-shell turtle off the sandbar could really care less. You could spend all day here, not one mile from Harbor Town, not three miles from downtown Memphis, and not see anyone. You could camp here, and certainly you’d see the glowing lights and smell the caustic smells, but otherwise you would have no idea that you’re camped amidst the tentacles of the biggest city along the last thousand miles of the biggest river on this continent! I call this “the river illusion.”
The river illusion is not uncommon amongst the muddy floodplain rivers of mid-America, like the Lower Missouri, the Lower Arkansas, and here the Lower Mississippi -- rivers with big floodplains that squelch any serious bankside ambitions. And by the very power of their unpredictable flooding waters which might jump and then fall 50 vertical feet in one season industry, suburbia, and most attempts at permanent infrastructure are kept at bay, and are tempered to a minimum. The grain elevators, steel plants and power plants are confined to the few high banks, and the cities to a few high bluffs. Otherwise, you can’t build it here, and as result the wild river rules a wild landscape.
The river illusion gets stronger the more time you spend on the river. And if you make a long distance expedition you begin to feel like the heart and gut of America, the mid-South and the deep-South, is still a forested landscape like it was 200 years ago. That the land is still endowed with endless deep woods and the wild paradise they create. That squirrels could still cross from the Ozarks to the Appalachians without touching the ground.
Two-thirds of the way down Loosahatchie Back Channel there is one last dike to cross. In medium water this could be a waterfall and you will want to stay river left (towards the island) where most of the water pours through a narrow notch and its surroundings. At high water there will be some turbulence, and by flood stage the dike is buried so far under muddy water that it becomes completely blown over and you can’t distinguish any extra fluid motion amidst the sea of motion. Downtown Memphis will eventually appear over the bottom of the island with a dreamlike quality. You might be surprised to find yourself directly opposite Mud Island with the Pyramid not far below! After three miles of floating or paddling, you can now curl around the bottom of the island and prepare for the long crossing over to the Bluff City.