Piney Point

11-15-09

I tried a different section of the river today.  I went to the Houston levee bridge again but went upstream this time.  This section is wild, meaning that it has never been dredged.  The dredging of the 1960s stopped at Gray’s Creek , about a mile downstream of the bridge. 

I moved upstream.  Here the river twists and winds in “S” shapes with large sand bars on the inside curves.  On the outside curves have steep clay banks that appear to be crumbling and show heavy erosion marks.  There are many  downed trees in the water.  This is a pretty nice section of river.  The tiered sand bars with their wispy reeds coming out of the top remind me of the sand dunes in Florida.  The temp is 75 and partly cloudy.  The water is almost green tea clear the further I move upstream.  Visibility is two to three feet.  After a mile upstream, I get to the water treatment plant outlet.  There is water spraying out of a creek bed.  I don’t smell anything, so it appears to be relatively clean, at least this time.  A large sand bar starts on the right creek bank.  The sand bar continues into the river channel and forms a sand shoal.  The shoal causes the water to ripple and shimmer.  On Google earth, the light play appears to be white water.   However, it is only reflection of light on shoal rippled waters.  The river is shallow and sandy, I can actually see the bottom.  I continue another 200 yards and reach a larger sand bar.  This sand bar form a point into the river almost a peninsula.  The opposite bank is a  high crumbling clay bluff topped with a pine forest.  The Collierville section of the river is much different from other sections.  The clay cliff bank with a pine forest behind it, trees tumbling into the river.  I ate lunch on the sandbar and watched the opposite bank.   

The difference in the river is obvious.  The East Memphis section of the river has a sandy bottom and sloping, muddy banks with mostly river birch and sycamore trees.  This section had been dredged in the 1960s.  The Fayette county sections are traditional cypress swamp with low, dark banks covered in thick, native vegetation.  T he Collierville section is different and appealing with its twisting course and white sandbars.   The curves in the river allow a paddler to play the curves when going upstream.  The current is slower on the inside of the curve but it is easy to fun aground on the sand shoal.  Sometimes a channel is closed off by the shoal and a paddler may have to backtrack.  I didn’t hear the traffic noise that I would hear on the lower section.  I can hear hunting dogs barking in the distance.  A flock of low flying ducks flew over, I could hear the wishing sound from the wings and feathers.  They were moving fast.

I was preparing to leave the Piney Point sandbar, when I heard voices coming down the river.  It was the canoe club.  They told me that they scheduled a last minute trip for the Colierville section and that I must not be on the email list.  A facilitator promised to put me on the list.  I floated back to the bridge with the club.  Richard told me that there is a much larger sandbar upstream of us where people camp out on overnight trips.  We got back to the bridge and I helped the women pull their boats up the rip rap bank.  It was difficult carrying boats up thirty feet of loose rock.