Big Bite: A 100-mile Paddle from Batesville to Augusta

Ee gad, don't try this at home unless you're either insane or a person of your convictions.  We put-in below the dam (#1) at Batesville at 9 in the morning.   After passing the city's waste water treatment plant, we started a long journey out of the foothills of the Ozarks into the Central Delta of Arkansas.  I tried to make 33 miles per day and do the trip to Augusta in three days, but suddenly, around Oil Trough, we lost the current and the wind cranked up out of the north. Every northbound reach was perilous and exhausting.  I only made 23 miles the first day.  27 the next.  31 the third. We made Augusta in the early afternoon on the fourth.  My body was gone; fingers cracked and oozing from the bitter wind and constant wet.

Passing a half-sunk barge near Newport on the
White River. (Photo: Jim Fortune)

The river changed on this trip from clear and green to turbid and pea-green.  There are observable causes for this that I'll write more about later.  For now, let it be a warning to floaters from Batesville south: the current right now slows to 1 mph and fighting a headwind here leaves no muscle untested.  The good news:  only 200 miles to go.