Kayaking the Atchafalaya River. Episode 1. Old river lock to RM 31
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- #atchafalayariver #atchafalaya #kayak #camping #louisiana #swamplife #adventure #adventures
Kayak camping and traveling the Atchafalaya River
It is the "other way" to the Gulf of Mexico and finally I get to calm my curiosity and experience what the Atchafalaya River is all about!!
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Awesome video, as always. What a great addition to your fantastic series on the Mississippi River. This is by far the most complete video series about paddling the Mississippi River that had ever been produced. Videos made by a paddler, for paddlers. Simply awesome!
Thanks Dan! cant wait to make the video with your input
Hey Jay! These three videos have been sitting in my quo for a time I could watch them all back to back and today I did just that. What an amazing trip, another one that is. I love your adventures. and this one was on par with the Mississippi. I love the wild and disconnection from the modern world you were able to experience. 👍🏻
Thank you KLR I am glad you enjoyed the trip! It was really nice being in that area and enjoying sometime in the south Louisiana swamp. They area is beautiful and a really great experience
Just got a chance to see this now that I have steady power and cell service. I miss the river already, but you two are giving me a taste of what I need!
well im happy to get you your river fix in the meantime!
great job this year, fun to follow you as always
Always Great Stuff Friend! Watched The Whole Thing!!
thanks my friend!
FANTASTIC. You and Ann are so generous in sharing your trip. Thank you
Thanks! it is our pleasure
It's so great seeing you share another journey with us . You make us Minnesotans proud as usual. Thanks again.
I appreciate that Aquasith! Comments such as yours really make the process of these videos worth the time and effort. Thank you!
FANTASTIC BROTHER I ALWAYS LOOK FOR TO YOUR VIDEOS GOOD JOB
Thanks CP!
Whoa! at the guy crossing the pipeline!
maintenance worker
Thanks for your videos. Some year I will paddle source to sea.
Next month starts my little adventure. I'm paddling the Colorado River (TX) from Austin to Matagorda, 288 miles.
Your videos inspire me to leave my comfort zone.
well have a great trip!
will you be filming it at all?
well have a great trip!
will you be filming it at all?
No video, but lots of pics. For my trips, I post on FB with a detailed summary/journal. My last trip was in July on the motorcycle for a month.
That would be a good trip for when it's too cold up north.
actually I was thinking it would be a nice time to own a house boat and hide from our MN winters down there in the bayous
Great video nice music and editing by the way. Love seeing the sights. Thanks for the time and energy it takes to upload! I see alot of dumping in the creeks out here near St. Louis as well. But for the most part it's seems people are getting better at not trashing it. . . I hate dead water as well lol
Thanks Christopher!
It was a great experience. I wish I could spend a couple weeks down in the bayous. maybe with a real boat tho, one that i dont have to paddle!
Filming is always a big challenge so I appreciate you acknowledging that.
Very interesting new trip! Can’t wait to see this series. Got my first river done a month ago, the Maganasipi in Quebec.
Hey congrats! how was it?
It was a very short river (52km/32miles) but very very shallow and long rapids with a lot of logs to portage and pull over/around in the headwaters. There were also some big shallow waterfalls and big canyons towards the bottom half. It was great tho!
Looks like another AWESOME trip! 👍
Hey OOMAN! Pretty neat being in the southern swamp. Its a whole different world to us northerners
Awesome video man! I'm a Louisiana native and make fishing and hopefully eventually kayak camping content. I've been struggling to find camp-able locations in LA, I.E., places you can kayak and then camp on the bank. How did you find places that were okay to camp? Any resources for this sort of thing would be greatly appreciated. I would love to do an overnighter or two on the Atchafalaya or even somewhere else in La.
@@theangriestangler For the most part we just looked for places (sand bars) that seemed to be away from anyones property. there are a couple places, like the point by the i10 bridge, that are known places to stop simply due to their remoteness. camping on the atch can be tough as the forest often comes right down to the river. there actually are places designated as camping sites along the river maintained by some official entity in LA i just dont remember who it was. maybe start by calling the DNR and see if they can point you to who maintains them sites. there is also a map out there for their locations but ive long sense lost track of it. you could also try jumping onto the "mississippi river paddlers" face book group and ask for some info there. many people on that group take the atch to the gulf and there is a lot of info available there. feel free to reach out with any other questions you may have
Thanks for a awesome video jay . Keep up the hard work and look forward to nexts one. Hope some day I can do a trip down the river it's a big dream of mine for sure.
working on episode 2 already!
i hope to see you on a trip like this someday 😁
What kind of boat would you recommend to traverse the Arkansas/Mississippi rivers? A friend and I have been on about 100 miles of the Arkansas in Kansas and Oklahoma in basic kayaks but with the river widening and getting stronger in the tulss area (McClellan -kerr) and continuing on to the mighty Mississippi I wonder what direction I should go with a new rig. I've looked into solo canoes and touring kayaks and I can't make up my mind on which way to go for safety, stability, capacity and speed reasons. Any advice?
i would highly recommend the current designs Whistler. its 14 ft which is much better than a 12 ft for the amount of gear you will need.
nice thing about that boat is it can handle almost anything and is a proven model/design on the mississippi.
12 ft is just a little too short in my and many other river paddlers opinions
feel free to reach out with further questions
hope that helps
@@escapewithjay thank you sir!
Good to see you back on the river .
Who is your friend
always good to be on the river
Jay: Thanks for the video. What time of year did you do your trip. How long did it take? Best -Jim
I believe we hit the water Sept 13 and it took 5 days to reach Burns point. We had good weather but minimal current so 5 days was an "easy going" speed for us.
Thanks Jay.
@@jarchitect you bet!
if you have any further questions feel free to ask
I was introduced to the Atchafalaya via John McPhee’s wonderful book, ‘The control of nature.” Your video reminded me of my time in Louisiana and New Orleans, a city and a state with lots of problems but lots of wonder too. Thanks again. Jim
@@jarchitect i was blown away with the beauty of the atchafalaya and the nature of Louisiana. many of the cities are in rough shape but the wilderness is out of this world! just be careful of them predators. we joked about keeping our hands and feet in the boat at all times to avoid losing them to a gar. we always laughed but deep down i think we knew it was actually possible 😳
beautiful place though and felt as free as any place i have been
Atchafalaya is the 5th largest river in US by discharge it is the Mississippi’s largest distributary and is sometimes used as a emergency floodway for the Mississippi during very high water .
Eventually the Mississippi will change course and switch its main channel down the Atchafalaya
I was actually on the mississippi when the morganza spill way was in operation. I was being warned by many tow captains to avoid that side of the river due to the pull of the water. There is a really neat video on the reasons the mississippi wants to change path and why it wouldnt have happened if not for man intervening in the red, atchafalaya and mississippi rivers. Very interesting if you can find it!
@@escapewithjay so you must have been on the river in 2011 . The interesting piece to the whole old river fiasco is that the us army corps of engineers is forced to control the Mississippi to keep in current channel thanks to Henry Shreve both in cutting a shortcut ( on Mississippi) at turn bulls bend and clearing a logjam on the Atchafalaya called the great raft.These 2 actions are what really set up the situation we have today . Hope your trip in the basin was nice my late grandparents used to take me fishing and camping in the Atchafalaya basin when I was a kid . The place has no equal you could spend a lifetime trying to explore it .
@@jakedrago7805 not 2011 but 2019 is when i was on the Mississippi
i completely agree on being able to spend a life time on the basin. ive already been telling people i want to get a boat and explore the area for a few weeks. would be awesome! if you were fishing there did you ever pull out the alagator gars? what do those things weigh they look huge
HELL YES!
LOL Thanks Cuz!
Wish I had known that you were going to be on the root River in so minn . I would have liked to meet you . I live in lacrosse wi .
well i still need to do the south branch, see if i can swing over to la crosse if the timing works out
Are there gators in this river or Mississippi River and will they nudge your boat or run into like a nest of them? My husband wants to do this but I'm a little scared of gators.
Hi Wisteria!
technically they are in both the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya.
we never had any issues with them and actually there seemed to be a lot less then i was expecting. No nests but i was told they would be obvious as there would be lots of tracks, definately dont camp anywhere near that area.
i am not aware of any paddlers having gators bump their boats but if you see a nest or a single gator keep your distance. they are still a wild animal so give them their space. actually had more gars bumping the boats then we even saw of the gators. again, be smart and you should be fine. i wouldnt recommend dangling fingers in the water. I was told by everyone i asked about the river that mosquitos are a bigger problem then the gators, i would say that is no lie.
i really enjoyed the trip and would say it can be done perfectly safely with some common sense and paying attention
im happy to answer any other questions you may have. here is my email: jkangler514@hotmail.com
happy planning!
Looks like that garbage might have been a camp collapse. The owner might not have even known since the river has been so low. I think it would be very unlikely anyone living on the river would leave that mess if they had known about it. We VALUE Atchafalya!
I hope that is true. While paddling the MIssissippi the homeless outside of Minneapolis had a huge pile of trash just below their caves just above the river. When it floods all their trash is swept away and they start fresh again. Very unfortunate to see people trashing the rivers. Later in the series I did see a house that apparently collapsed from bank erosion so no doubt it happens. Sounds like to live on or near the Atchafalaya?
@@escapewithjay
I live about 40 miles away. But travel that area often. I feel such a bond there. Welcome to my world! Love the videos! We cherish the basin! So glad to see you journey! God bless you for sharing your experience with our Louisiana! ❤️
@@selisahue1268 it is a very beautiful place. We enjoyed our trip through that area so much. The Atchafalaya basin is a treasure i wish we had much more time (and ability) to explore!
I am glad to hear you enjoy the videos and thank you for watching!
I wonder how the sediment diversion project they're doing now will affect this route.
well any time people intervene it seems to have positive effects in one area and negative in another. With the Army Corps of Engineers being so heavily involved sediment mitigation we see the loss of countless acres of shoreline in Louisiana. Only time will tell
Thanks for watching!
Nice bull shark population in that river
that thought was on our mind! 😬
@@escapewithjay they filmed a part of the film out of sight with George Clooney on the Krotz Springs bridge. I remember us driving past it at night on our way back to Baton Rouge on Thanksgiving night as a kid
@@shooterridge i learned quite a bit gets filmed in the area, swamp people, alone i believe did a season there. its a beautiful wilderness. as a minnesotan it feels like a whole different world down there. i love the area. ill look up that movie scene!
I've literally traveled the world. Best food is in South Louisiana.
Sad thing is I am allergic to shellfish so I cant eat most places down south. Real bummer!