Mile 793.0 - rbd 793-785 Island 30

rbd 793-785 Island 30

WARNING: There are two significant falls at low/medium waters, one at top end and one at bottom end of Island 30. See below for more description.

Island 30 creates an intriguing back door entrance to Osceola. If the water is high enough (above 25 on the Caruthersville Gauge) and you want to make an Osceola landing, or even if you just want more back channel exploration, you can enter the back channel of Island 30 for a wonderful tree-lined meandering eight mile paddle. Highly recommended (if the water is high enough). If Osceola is your destination, riding the back channel makes things easier: you won’t have to paddle back upstream against the current of the Osceola Harbor to reach the landing!

To get into the back channel of Island No 30 you will first have to get behind the Ashport Gold Dust Dikes, as described above. It’s best to enter at the very top end, from the base of Island 27 near Daniel’s Point Landing RBD 796.5. Stay hard bank right several miles and then follow the opening near 793 over a sometimes turbulent falls (a submerged dike). There are tall trees on either bank and it feels like you are passing through the gates into a magical kingdom. Warning: turbulent waters sometimes found at top entrance to Island 30 Back Channel. Most water flows through tongue center stream. This can be a significant falls around 20-25 CuG, so scout first and make sure you are capable of safely handling. At 30 most of the drop has been submerged and you will only see turbulence and powerful boils and eddies. Once you get through there are no more dikes until the final miles (1.5 miles - see warning below).

You might encounter a fisherman or two, but others otherwise it will be nothing but you, the bottomland hardwood forests, the wildlife along the bank, and the birds in the air -- a welcome change from the sometimes sterile monotony of the main channel! This back channel flows along for miles and miles -- eight miles in all. The Arkansas levee closes in eventually, and you will pass by a primitive muddy landing with a good concrete ramp near the town of Luxora. If you need to resupply keep going, Osceola will be your best stop. Near flood stage other side channels off the back channel will open up. Follow at your own discretion. You might hear highway traffic after Luxora. This is the legendary blues Highway 61 now close by the river and found just over the levee. Highway 61 runs north to south like the great river herself, out of the North woods right down to the Gulf of Mexico (ending in New Orleans).

From Marion Bragg’s Historic Names and Places on the Lower Mississippi:

“When Island No. 30 was given its identifying number in 1801, it lay close to the left shore. Later it crossed the river-or the river crossed it-and it now lies in front of Osceola, near the Arkansas side of the Mississippi. It appears to be attached to Arkansas, but is owned by Tennessee.

“In 1913 the famous, record-breaking steam-powered towboat Sprague had a spectacular accident at Island No. 30. The big sternwheel boat, pushing a record tow of coal barges, was coming downstream when she was caught in side currents and whirled into the chute behind the island. Colliding with some stone dikes, the Big Mama, as she was affectionately called by river men, dropped her countless tons of coal into the chute, and lost all her barges.

“Some years later, the Mississippi tore out the old stone dikes at Island No. 30, removed the mountains of coal deposited there by the Sprague, and settled itself in a new bed where the chute had been.”

Today Sprague’s Coal has been littering the bottom of the river downstream of Osceola and Island 30, and is pushed up on top of sandbars to be seen especially at low water, notably on the Hatchie Bar, where boulder sized chunks of coal still become visible, and further downstream at the top end of Dean Island.

WARNING: Low Rock Dam at bottom end of Island 30, rocky rapids at 10-15, whitewater rapids at 15-20, and big volume waves and turbulence at 25, flattens out at 30. When in doubt, stop and Scout!