Paddling and camping on the Mississippi River
Part 2: "Boatpacking"

by Elmore Holmes
January, 2006

     I started paddling--for real, anyway--in the summer of 1981.
     That means I've now been a paddler for almost two and a half decades.
     That's a pretty good chunk of time--well over half my lifetime.  Long enough that when I recently prepared to take an overnight trip on the Mississippi River from Drummonds, Tennessee, to downtown Memphis, I had to think about it for a minute.  Finally, I realized: I've never done this before.
     Paddling and camping had been part of my life for plenty long, and I'd been all over the place doing both.  I'd traveled the Appalachians, the Rockies, the Cascades, the Ozarks, the coast, paddling my boat by day, pitching my tent and sleeping by night in national forests, state parks, BLM land, and sometimes places I really wasn't supposed to be.  But I had never integrated paddling and camping: my paddling trips had always been day trips, and my camping had always been that poor-man's hotel stay known as "car" camping.
     This trip on the Mississippi marked the first time ever that I would have to fit everything I might possibly need for the next two days--camping gear, food, creature comforts--into my boat.  Preparing for it was an uncertain affair.
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     I knew that I must adopt a backpacker's mentality, and choose gear that was as light and compact as possible.  The only piece of true backpacking gear I owned was my sleeping bag, a nice down bag that stuffed to less than a cubic foot in size.  Everything else would undergo careful scrutiny as I pondered just how badly I needed it.  The deluxe two-burner propane camp stove would stay behind in favor of dry or pre-cooked food that I could eat right out of the bag.  I packed all the food into one-serving containers to save space--I poured one breakfast's worth of cereal into the smallest plastic container possible, for instance.
     Of course, while I conserved space in some areas, I took it back in others.  A campfire was a must, and while plenty of driftwood is available out on the Mississippi, I didn't want to take the chance that it would be optimally dry and burn-ready.  So I packed some dry plane-shavings and small scraps from my woodworking shop.  An evening by the campfire just won't work without a couple of cold beers, so I packed them into my girlfriend Martha's small cooler along with small jars of orange juice, milk, and other essentials.
     I arrived at the putin, the Duval's Landing boat ramp west of Drummonds, and began to pack gear into the boat.  I was using Martha's Looksha III touring kayak, and I was pleasantly surprised by its cargo capacity.  The small items like the tent and sleeping bag slid to the far reaches of the bow and stern of this over-18-foot boat, leaving plenty of space for the cooler, the firewood, and more.
     By late morning our group was on the water, paddling off into a breezy but sunny and balmy November day.  With its sizeable payload, my boat was noticeably heavier than usual, but once I got it up to speed it glided just fine.  A large group (we had fifteen boats) always moves slowly anyway, so I wasn't out to set any speed records.
     The south wind generated a pretty good dose of chop, and I realized my error in not bringing a sprayskirt.  Because I do most of my paddling in a surf ski these days, a skirt is not part of my normal kit of gear, and I'd left it at home.  The waves were not big enough to pour into the cockpit, but the wind blew in plenty of spray along with the normal drip from my paddle.  I was most concerned about my camera, a 20-year-old analog model that I had stored behind the seat where I could reach it easily.  A dry bag was another item I should have brought but hadn't, and so I wrapped the camera in a plastic grocery sack and placed it on top of other items to keep it out of any standing water.
     We stopped for lunch on a large sand-and-gravel beach on the Arkansas side.  I ate one of the two sandwiches I had made (the other was for the next day's lunch) and drank water from one of the many bottles I had stored throughout the boat.  I was adequately fed, but I noticed that others had brought along bags of nuts, crackers, and other snacks that would have gone nicely with my sandwich.  At least I had thought to pack some Dove dark chocolate treats for dessert... my favorite!
     In the mid-afternoon we reached our campsite, a large sandbar about a mile upriver from Shelby Forest State Park.  As we drifted toward the beach, I couldn't believe my eyes: a fire was already burning!  The brother of one of our paddlers had launched his johnboat from Shelby Forest and ferried fire fuel and other camping supplies up to the sandbar.  I felt cheated, having filled my boat with all that dry kindling.  Apparently, not everybody shared my commitment to a self-contained trip.
     But then the man offered me a beer, and my feelings of indignation disappeared real quick.  Once I had unpacked my boat and pitched my tent, I settled down near the fire with the others and enjoyed the waning daylight.
     I was most pleased with the pre-cooked supper I had brought along: a couple of barbecued drumsticks left over from a meal my mom had cooked three nights earlier; a zip-lock bag full of celery; an apple; a couple of slices of bread and cheese; and cool clean water to wash it all down.  Since we had a roaring fire and several neighbors with camp stoves, I had no trouble finding hot water if I needed it; however, on future expeditions with smaller groups, a small backpacker's stove might merit some space in my boat's cargo hold.
     Overnight, I got a grim reminder of the importance of staking down a tent securely.
     My first such lesson had occured some ten years prior on a trip to the Gauley River in West Virginia.  There, I had assumed that the weight of my sleeping bag, backpack, and other gear would be sufficient to keep the tent in one place, and left for a day on the river without driving any stakes into the ground.  I returned that evening to find that a gust of wind had blown the tent into Summersville Reservoir.  Since that day, I have always deployed my stakes.
     Trouble is, ordinary tent stakes don't work very well in sand.  I could tell as I drove them in that they just weren't grabbing hold, and when the big storm blew in after midnight, they were no match for the hundreds of pounds of pressure exerted by the wind in the tent's fly.  Had I had more backpacking experience, I might have known that several manufacturers make stakes that grip soupy media like sand and snow.  Before my next camping adventure on anything other than firm soil, I plan to order a set of such stakes.
     The next morning we were back on the water with about 19 miles of river to paddle to downtown Memphis.  Most of us were eager to get to the takeout and have a little weekend left before heading back to work on Monday, so a lunch stop wasn't really part of the plan.  My second sandwich would have to wait, but a couple of granola bars sustained me nicely as the Memphis skyline sprouted from the southern horizon.
     By early afternoon we were off the water and in our cars heading home.  My first true paddling overnighter had been most enjoyable, and a valuable learning experience for the more ambitious trips I hope to undertake in the future.
 


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