Vicksburg to Baton Rouge — Introduction

Intro: Vicksburg to Baton Rouge: Welcome to the 2014 update to the Rivergator : Paddlers Guide to the Lower Mississippi River! This section describes the big river as it flows through the Lower Delta, Vicksburg to Baton Rouge, 208 miles of remote wild river with very few landings and lots of deep woods, ever larger and larger loopy-loops of river, and giant islands commanding the channel which split the big river into its many lacerated chutes and alternate routes. Spanish moss draped cypress palmetto bottom forests and magnolia vine-draped hillsides are gothic reminders that you are descending into the sub-tropics.

This is the homeland of great native societies as honored at Grand Village of the Natchez and Poverty Point Historic Site, and was the superhighway of the Quapaw, the Houma, the Tunica, the Natchez and all of the other great pre-Columbian civilizations. The Atchafalaya splits off below Fort Adams to join the Red and Ouachita Rivers with one third of the daily average flow of the Mississippi, providing an alternate route for ocean-going paddlers. The river here curves through extensive Louisiana bottomland hardwood forests with striking prominences of Loess Bluffs to the east at Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, Bondurant, Natchez, Fort Adams, Angola, Port Hudson and Baton Rouge.

Fantastically rich back channels abound during higher water levels following ancient braided channels in and out of chutes, parallel drainages, tributaries and oxbow lakes notably at Yucatan, Rodney, Old River/Vidalia, Glasscock, Lake Mary, Raccouri, Profit Island and Devil’s Swamp. During low water the sandbars grow exponentially to become the size of ocean beaches and are important habitat for waders and waterfowl of all types including wood storks, anhinga and the roseate spoonbill. The interior least tern has successfully recovered and is being delisted as an endangered species because of these healthy sandbar habitats, while endangered pallid sturgeon are recovering their numbers in the back channels, many of which have been re-opened through the LMRCC notching project.

Spectacular birding is found at St. Catherine Creek NWR, and the North American co-champion bald cypress can be seen below the Tunica Hills on Cat Island NWR. More than anywhere else along the Lower Mississippi the feeling of the ancient, endless, brooding, bottomland hardwood jungle pervades along this section of river and makes for safari-like adventures for the few who brave it in human-powered vessel. Wild boars overrun many of the islands and alligators abound in all tributaries and slow-running channels.

Invasive silver carp leap over the bow of your canoe, and slap your shoulder while you slap the water with your kayak blade in terror of their surprising antics.

Vicksburg

marks a significant change of geography for the Lower Mississippi River paddler. Vicksburg heralds the end of the Mississippi Delta and the beginning of the Mississippi Loess Bluffs. From here down to Baton Rouge there are no continuous levees on the East side of the river because of the high ground created by the bluffs, which approach the river and then retreat along various tributaries like Bayou Pierre, Coles Creek and the Big Black River.

The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta technically ends at the mouth of the Yazoo River, also known as “the River of Death.” This junction also marks the first left bank tributary since the Wolf River (and Nonconnah Creek) in Memphis, 300 miles upstream! The Atchafalaya River: Best Route to the Gulf The 150 mile long Atchafalaya River makes for an enticing alternative for paddlers who want to avoid the heavy industry awaiting them below Baton Rouge. Imagine paddling down the richest and largest river swamp in North America as opposed to paddling down the busiest and largest inland port in the world, simultaneously the most dangerous stretch of river in the greater Mississippi Valley.

Unless you are dead-set committed to the traditional Mississippi route, most paddlers would do best to take the Atchafalaya route. Compare the two below, as preparation for which Gulf outlet you should take for the completion of your expedition. Atchafalaya River Route: Paddlers can enter the Atchafalaya Canal right bank descending above Shreve’s Bar at mile 304 through the Old River Lock and Dam. The Atchafalaya is a distributary of the Mississippi and Red Rivers. One third of the average daily flow of the Mississippi passes down the Atchafalaya, which makes it the shortest big river in America.

At nearly one-million acres, the Atchafalaya Basin is North America’s largest riverine swamp. It contains monstrous ecosystems of marshland, bottomland forests, lakes, bayous, and estuaries. The Atchafalaya (Native American for Long River) offers a baseline for big river health and ecosystem vitality. The Atchafalaya Basin is a key estuary for nesting, breeding, and migration of 250 bird species, 60 species of reptiles & amphibians, and it is also the life-support system for close to 100 species of fish.

One of the most profound aspects of the Atchafalaya River is its ability to improve water quality as the river runs its course to the Gulf. (Its muddy deltas are examples of how the Mississippi River should be working below New Orleans, but isn’t because the Mississippi River water is not allowed to filter through the brackish wetlands, having been cut off by levees and canals). The disappearing coast of Louisiana is being saved along one of the Atchafalaya distributaries, called Wax Lake. The Wax Lake channel is creating a totally new delta as the sediments of a nation fall out of the muddy flow and congeal to form fresh land.

Mississippi River Route: On the other hand, staying on the Mississippi below Baton Rouge you will encounter very dangerous river conditions through New Orleans and Venice including poor campsites with toxic air and water conditions. You will have to paddle several hundred miles of choppy crowded water sharing the main channel with sea-going freighters, cargo boats, re-supply vessels, and endless fields of barges as they fleet up for the long distance journey back up the river. Commonly known as “Chemical Corridor,” some paddlers have gotten sick within this stretch when they ended up downwind of the wrong smokestack.

You will be camping next to refineries, chemical plants, plastics manufacturing, and lots of coal-fired power plants. More toxins are dumped in the river here than any other piece of river in America. No more remote camping, no more swimming, no more quiet sections of river teeming with wildlife. This is a section of the Mississippi you paddle just to get through it. Go to the Atchafalaya and the Old River Control Structure sections in the Rivergator for more description of the two routes, their respective lengths, and other aspects, to help you make your best choice.

NOTE TO PADDLERS: The Rivergator is for your free use! Please print or access from your smart phone. (Presented here in roughly 100 miles sections from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico). Best case scenario: 1) print up section of Rivergator that you will be canoeing or kayaking. 2) Print up accompanying USACE river maps. 3) Print up NOAA River Stage Forecasts the day before you embark on your adventure for latest readings and forecast. 4) Lastly, listen to and print the latest weather forecast. Secure the above by inserting pages into 8.5x11 page protectors and bundle into a 3-ring notebook or waterproof map casing which are available at most water outfitters such as The BackPacker or Massey's Professional Outfitters (Baton Rouge), Pack & Paddle Outfitters (Lafayette) or online at REI or NRS.

If using smart phone protect with water-proof casing! The river is hungry for electronic devices and equipment that doesn’t float! (I have personally left several marine radios, a half dozen knives, countless sunglasses and one camera with the sturgeon and catfish at the bottom of the river!) The Rivergator is a public service brought to you compliments of the Lower Mississippi River Foundation with support from dozens of river experts and partner organizations. Who is the Rivergator written for?

The Rivergator is written by paddlers for paddlers. It will open the river for local experienced canoeists who have always wanted to paddle the Mississippi but didn’t know how or when or where to start. Canoe clubs, kayak clubs and outdoor clubs. Outdoor leadership schools. Friends and families. Church groups and youth groups. It could be used by the Girl Scouts for a week-long summer expedition to Tunica, or a group of Boy Scouts working on their canoe badge in the Memphis area -- or a group of KIPP middle schoolers from Helena who want to get on the river at the mouth of the St.

Francis for an easy daytrip. Paddlers seek out new places to explore. You could read the Rivergator during the winter months from your home and by spring snowmelt you could be making your first paddle strokes on a life-changing adventure down the Mississippi! Rivergator will help you get there if you’re a long-distance canoeist who started at Lake Itasca, or a kayaker who is coming through south after paddling the length of the Missouri River from Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains. You could be a stand-up-paddleboarder who put in at the Great River Confluence of the Upper Mississippi and Big Muddy Missouri in St.

Louis. Us paddlers are all the same: canoeists, kayakers, stand-up-paddleboarders, rafters. We look for the same kinds of currents on the river, and enjoy the same kinds of remote islands. We are slow, but efficient. We know the river better than any other river pilots, at least the pieces of river we have paddled on. We have more in common with towboats than motorboats. Regardless of what you paddle, the Rivergator will you help you find the essential landings and the obscure back channels that you would otherwise miss.

It will help you safely paddle around towboats, and choose the best line of travel to follow around the head-turning bends and intimidating dikes, wing dams, and other rock structures. It will identify which islands to camp and which to avoid, and where the best picnic spots are found and where blue holes form. It will lead you to places of prolific wildlife and mind-blowing beauty. It will help explain some of the mysterious motions of the biggest river in North America. It’s written for canoeists and kayakers, but is readable enough to be enjoyed by any arm-chair adventurers including landowners, hunters, fishermen, communities along the route, historians, biologists, geologists, and other river-lovers.

The river is the key to understanding the history, the geography and the culture of the Mid-South. It’s the first high speed “router.” It connected our ancestors much like internet does today. It’s the original American highway, migration route, freight route, newspaper route, and trade route. But it’s also a church, a sanctuary, a playground, a classroom. The river is the rock star, The Rivergator is merely a guide to help you interpret and enjoy the songs of the river! Reading the Rivergator : The Rivergator reads like a big river expedition, starting above St.

Louis at the confluence of the Missouri and following the Middle and then Lower Mississippi downstream mile-by-mile. (Note: we are currently in the second year of a four year project: ultimate start place will be St. Louis, with end place in the Gulf of Mexico, almost 1200 miles of free-flowing river). The descriptions are factual and the information is the most up-to-date available, but I have tried to enliven the writing with “the feel” whenever possible. Each piece is titled with headings in bold that include 1) the name of the important features along the way, 2) which side of the river it’s on, and 3) its mileage.

For example, “LBD Mile 736 Memphis, Tennessee, Mud Island Harbor.” 736 is the mileage above the head of passes near the Gulf of Mexico. RBD=right bank descending and LBD=left bank descending. Paddlers are offered many route choices beyond the main channel in the plethora of sluices, back channels, secret passages, and tributaries along the way, using Google maps for illustration. On your laptop or home computer you could open two pages, one for the text and one for Google maps. On the river you can switch back and forth on your smart phone.

Or you can print the text and use the US Army Corps Lower Mississippi Maps hard copy or online. The Rivergator is three guides wrapped up into one, because every island, landing and riverbank has to be described in three different water levels, low, medium and high. It provides paddling routes, as well as history, geography and culture. The Mississippi fluctuates 40-50 vertical feet in any given year, with enormous changes as result, whole islands disappear in high water, while some good landings become fields of mud at low water.

Panel of Experts: All writing is reviewed by a panel of paddlers, naturalists and other river experts including (for this section) Ernest Herndon, author of Canoeing Mississipp i also Canoeing Louisiana; Paul Hartfield, endangered species biologist USFW; Ray Acock, big river naturalist; Tommy Shropshire, outdoorsman, kayak-fisherman; Dora Ann Hatch, Agritourism Coordinator LSU AgCenter; David Dupree, kayaker, Angeline Rodgers, Director, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Commission; Mike Beck, kayaking chemist; Nathan Beane, USACE forest/plant ecologist, Michael Jones, Mississippi Outdoor Tourism Director, Paul Orr, Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper; Michael Orr, Louisiana Environmental Action Network; Layne Logue, kayaker; Adam Elliott, big river guide; Mark River Peoples, big river guide; and Braxton Barden, big river guide.

I, John Ruskey, am primary author. I have been taking notes, photographs and documenting the river since my first raft trip down the Mississippi in 1982. And so the Rivergator is the culmination of over 30 years of exploration. I have paddled the Mississippi on anything that floats including a log. To verify all information we have been making “refresher expeditions,” (we last paddled this section with a team of explorers in April and then in Dec, 2014). We’ll spice the journey with stories and vignettes from adventures along the way.

Other important Rivergator sources include the National Weather Service “Lower Mississippi River Gauge and Week Forecast,” the US Army Corps 2007 Flood Control and Navigation Maps: Mississippi River, Google Maps Satellite View, Marion Braggs’ Historic Names and Places on the Lower Mississippi River , Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi , The Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee, Louisiana Delta Adventures, Lower Delta Partnership, Mississippi Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks, Greenville CVB, Vicksburg CVB, City of Vicksburg, LSU Agritourism, Explore North Louisiana, Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge, John James Audubon Birds of America , Parkman’s LaSalle , DeSoto’s Narrative , Wikipedia, Quapaw Canoe Company and Wild Miles.

See “Sources” for complete listing and suggestions for further reading. Wild Miles: The wonderful thing about the Lower Miss is that it’s still wild! You will see some industry and agriculture between Memphis and Helena, but for the most part your experience will be big water, big forests, big sandbars, big bluffs and big skies! Does this sound like Alaska? Or Lake Superior? Or Puget Sound? Yes -- but it’s not. It’s nothing but the muddy big river, the biggest river in North America, and the longest stretch of free-flowing waters in the Lower 48.

In this section the wild places include Mile 725 to 664, 61 Wild Miles from below Memphis Harbor to above Helena Note: Tunica River Park & Museum, Buck Island protected public-use island. Some casinos seen. Bright night lights from casinos. Lights of Memphis dimly seen along northern horizon. Casino section Mile 708-695 might need to be removed from Wild Miles. What are the Wild Miles? According to www.wildmiles.org there are 515 Wild Miles on the Lower Mississippi River between Cairo, Illinois, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which means that 71% of the scenery viewed from canoes or kayaks paddling down that stretch of river looks & feels “wild.” Wild Miles are the places along the river where nature predominates and nothing is seen of mankind save passing tows (and other river traffic) and maybe a tiny hunting camp or a single fisherman buzzing by in a johnboat.

These are places where the landscape is filled with giant islands bounded by endless mud banks & sandbars, where the river is overseen by big skies and where the sun sets uninterrupted by buildings or wires and where big river predominates with creative wild beauty, each high water results in shifting sand dunes and re-made sandbars. This is a floodplain valley where only deer & coyote tracks are seen along the sandbars and enormous flocks of shy birds like the white pelican and double breasted cormorant are comfortable enough to make landing for the night.

These are places where it's dark & quiet at night, where the stars fill the skies like brightly shining jewels poured out on a dark purple velvet blanket, almost as thick & vibrant as the night skies of the Great Plains or Rocky Mountains. America has an opportunity to find the wilderness within by recognizing and preserving the below Wild Miles in the center of the country, and it just so happens that the gigantic floodplain of the Mississippi creates these Wild Miles. These places have been preserved mostly by neglect, by the power of the river, by its catastrophic rises & falls, and the danger of building anything within its floodplain.

Moreover, in light of recent flood cycles and the declining population of the lower floodplain, this area is receiving attention as one of the best places to restore native bottomland hardwood forests. Restored forest creates habitat for wildlife, improved water quality, a buffer to flooding, and is an important means of reducing the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, caused by nutrient runoff into the river. For this reason the recent efforts to reopen the Birdspoint-New Madrid Floodway would have a detrimental effect on the entire Lower Miss, at the very least in flood control.

Developers: Instead of building any new sites within these Wild Miles, please consider placing new industry and agriculture construction outside the Wild Miles -- and stay within those places already industrialized such as within one of the many harbors along the way, or building it far enough behind the levee that it won't be seen or heard or be directly connected to the river. Big Trees and Floodplain: The lower Mississippi River Valley was historically a vast expanse of bottomland and adjacent upland hardwood forests with scattered openings primarily created by fire, beaver, or large flood events by the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

These openings were generally comprised of herbaceous moist-soil areas that created excellent waterfowl and other wetland wildlife habitat or giant switch cane that was almost impenetrable and an extremely important habitat component for a variety of wildlife species. Once covering 22 million acres in the Mississippi River Alluvial Plain, bottomland hardwood forests have decreased in extent to only 4.9 million acres. Extensive clearing for agriculture (i.e. soybeans, corn, or cotton) and urbanization are two of the primary reasons giant bald cypress and relic oak trees of pre-settlement times no longer exist in many areas.

However, giant bald cypress and oak trees characteristic of yesteryear can still be seen on some of these sections of the Lower Mississippi. Important Note to Paddlers: T