Escatawpa River, AL (11/04)

From my article "Three Multi-Day Flatwater Trips within a Day’s Drive from Nashville...", in the TSRA Watershed...

Escatawpa River in AL

difficulty: easy to moderate, depending on water levels

The Escatawpa River is a beautiful blackwater river that runs along the Alabama-Mississippi border near Mobile. Pine trees line the river banks, isolating the river rather quickly beyond the access points. Plenty of sand beaches offer numerous camping options. Hunting season gunfire and the occasional treestand were the only real signs of humans that we encountered between access points. At high water, paddling was easy. The river did all of the work. It took us about 2 hours to paddle/float our 7 mile objective for each day. Even at higher water, plenty of sandbars were available for camping. Because the Escatawpa is a blackwater river, we had to pack in our own water. Swimming is definitely an option for warmer months. A government study deemed this water quality to be among the highest for blackwater rivers. Unfortunately, encroaching development at some of the access points is causing erosion problems at the beaches near the access points.

We used Escatawpa Hollow Campground and Canoe Rental on US-98 to run our shuttle. We ran this river over the Thanksgiving holiday, putting in 21 miles above and paddling to the campground over the course of three days and a morning. An important note with this river is water levels can rise quickly in the event of rain. We had a heavy thunderstorm one morning and the water level rose several feet by the following morning.