The Lower Mississippi River Water Trail

Vicksburg Boat Ramp

The Vicksburg Boat Ramp is located behind the sea wall across from Catfish Row Art Park.  Shuttle drivers can come down Clay Street and enter at the break in the sea wall with all the beautiful murals.

 

445-442 Brown’s Point

 

The excitement is building as you round Brown’s Point.  This is the last major bend of the river before you reach Vicksburg.  You’ll soon be leaving the Delta.  You’ll soon be seeing the bluffs.  You’ll soon be quaffing beers and resupplying your depleted  provisions.  Maybe even a hot shower?  Okay, okay, but it’s still seven miles downstream and you still have to get around Brown’s Point!  In preparation for a Vicksburg landing, please be forewarned that there is no public access on the main channel of the river.  Paddler’s intending to meet their shuttles or resupply in Vicksburg will need to enter the mouth of the Yazoo River LBD 437.3 and paddle one mile up the Yazoo to reach the public boat launch at the foot of Clay Street.

 

As you ride the current westward out of Marshall Cut-Off below Paw Paw you’ll notice several inlets or cut-out places along the left bank descending LBD446-445, each with its own giant eddy swirling round and round in the timeless perpetual way of river eddies.  These cavities are the results of previous floods which have caused the riverbanks to collapse in weak places and form little harbors.  In some places they are covered with rip-rap, in some places revetment, in some places asphalt.  The whole Army Corps arsenal of riverbank management is represented here.  If a storm is blowing in out of the South, or if you need a good place to picnic, pull into one of these eddies, make a landing on one the small sandbars and find the nearest shade tree.  The northwestern exposure here makes for good morning/mid-day shade.  In 2012 I helped guide Teddy Roosevelt IV on a big river tour and we pulled into one of these harbors.  He remembered how his great grandfather hunted bear in these regions and was astounded by the big trees in the Delta forests.  He stood near the same place his grandfather hunted and marveled at the great river and the unimaginable scale of the floodplain extending outwards, downwards and upwards — encompassing tens of millions of acres between Cairo Illinois and the Gulf of Mexico.  I just wish his ancestor TRI had saved the trees here like he did in Yosemite and Yellowstone!  But maybe it’s not too late.

 

The 2011 flood smashed the banks heavily around Brown’s Point, especially near LBD 444, in some places completely removing all the soil and leaving unsightly piles of rip-rap, steel cables, and other man-made rubble behind.  It’s a moonscape of failed engineering.  You won’t notice it in high water.  But as you float by in low water this mess presents a dismal scene of chaos and destruction.  Don’t attempt making any landings in this section.  One mile further is much more pleasant.  The riverbank returns and beautiful sandy places can be seen below the tall trees.  In high water you might find one or two small sand dunes places to stop as you round the final protrusions of