The Lower Mississippi River Water Trail

LBD 768.9 Richardon’s Landing

All that remains of Richardon’s Landing is a deep inlet full of powerful boils and eddies and the ragged edge of asphalt that was once Tennessee Highway 59, which was ripped from its final hundred feet by the insatiable appetite of the main channel currents.  A small creek enters the river down a deep muddy bayou with gravely bottom.  You can sometimes find a small purchase at the creek’s mouth for a possible quick stop, but for picnics or camps it would be best to keep on downstream to sandbars around Reverie Landing/Cedar Point (LBD 766-763), or ten miles further to the biggest and best island in the area, Dean’s Island.

 

LBD 768 Randolph’s Landing/Duvall’s Boat Ramp

Wide concrete ramp with huge parking lot, set perpendicular to river over the rip-rap.  Parking lot notorious hell-raising party place amongst locals.  Do not leave your vehicle overnight.  Safeguard all valuables out of sight even if just for a day trip.  This put-in makes for a good overnight back into Memphis (now 31 miles downstream), or a more luxurious 3-day trip.  The Mississippi River tried to jump channel below Duvalls Landing during the 2011 flood.  The USACE has since come in and refilled a gaping hole almost a mile long with heavy rip-rap reinforcement.  Another example of the river lands in flux and mankind’s attempt to deter it.

 

LBD 766-763 Below Richardson Landing Dikes & Bar

Huge sandbar at low water, small at medium, completely disappears in high water.  Best picnicking top end.  Not recommended for camping unless darkness is settling on you and you have no other option.  Exposed location, difficult access to the shelter of trees and no dependable firewood sources.  Avoid camping on bottom end.  Further down this bar is a favorite hangout/playground for a thriving community of 4-wheelers, mostly ATVs, whose hell-raising riders throng along the beaches on any nice summer or fall day, particularly thick on weekends.

 

Dyess Arkansas, Birthplace of Johnny Cash Five Feet High And Rising:

The great country music troubadour Johnny Cash was born in Dyess Arkansas, which is not too far behind Island 35, over the levee and the fields on the other side of “blues” Highway 61.  He grew up on a family farm deep within the Mississippi River floodplain.  His childhood was filled with bayous, backwaters, mud and of course the seasonal flooding of the big river.