Floating the Jacks Fork

On the Jacks Fork the height of the water sets most of what a float will be: which stretch is worth putting in on, what kind of boat suits it, how long the trip takes and how much of it is spent wading. The same seven miles from the Prongs to Highway 17 can pass in a few hours of fast water in April and take most of an August day of dragging a boat over gravel. How people came to float the river, from the johnboat guides of Eminence to the canoe boom1 of the 1970s, is the subject of Chapter 9.

Two kinds of float water

Paddlers grade moving water on a scale of six classes. Class I18 is moving water with riffles and small waves and little in the way, and Class II has plain rapids with clear channels that a beginner can read from the boat, with now and then a rock or a bend to steer around. Classes III to VI2 run from rapids that call for real skill to water that is close to unrunnable. The whole Jacks Fork is Class I and II3, the gentle end of the scale.

Measured along its bed, the river falls about 9 feet a mile4 from the Prongs to Highway 17, 8 on to Muck Forty Hole, 7 from there to just below Alley Spring, 6 on to Eminence and 5 from Eminence to the Current (Chapter 2). Over the seven miles to Highway 17 that comes to about sixty feet5 of fall. The long pools lie nearly flat, and most of the fall comes in the riffles between them, so a boat moves in bursts. In its upper course the valley is close to a canyon, with no bottomland fields for its first twenty-five floatable miles6, and the channel swings from one bend to the next against the foot of a bluff. At low water in spring the stream, about thirty feet wide, squeezes in places into a frothing riffle no more than six feet across, with the gravel bottom only inches under the canoe, and as Missouri floats go the upper river is small, steep, fast and unusually clear7. In April and May the stretch above Alley runs as Class II water8.

The upper river rises and falls with the rain. Above Alley the only large spring is Blue Spring9 (Chapter 12), and with nothing much to keep the river up between storms, the flow at Highway 17 in an average September is about an eighth of the flow in an average April, roughly 63 cubic feet a second against 48510 (Chapter 14). Trips with loaded canoes above Alley are best kept to spring or to the weeks after good summer rains11. In mid-to-late summer the water between Buck Hollow and Bay Creek usually runs low, which makes for harder floats and fewer people12. A Park Service folder of 1977 told floaters that the upper stretches of both rivers were “often more fun to float during late winter and spring13 because in summer’s low water, portages have to be made around exposed gravel bars.” Of the Jacks Fork above Alley in particular, the same folder said it “can be floated year-round if you have learned to ‘read’ the water currents and are prepared to sacrifice some aluminum from your canoe to the underlying rocks,” with spring14 the best time.

People who grew up on the upper river float it in summer too. A Mountain View resident who grew up at Arroll and has floated the stretch from the Prongs to Highway 17 many times names June through September as the best months and does not hold with the idea that the river above Blue Spring is worth floating only after a rain. The same floater counts the Prongs to Highway 17 the prettiest stretch on the river, and a harder float than Alley Spring to Two Rivers15.

Below Alley Spring the river changes character. Alley adds more water than the whole river above it16 carries in a dry season (Chapter 12), and from there to the Current the Jacks Fork is Class I, wider and gentler, and floatable in every month. For a first-timer the same Mountain View floater would choose Alley Spring to Eminence19. A magazine writer who floated the upper Current in 196317 said that among the writer’s friends the Current was first among equals of floaters’ rivers, “though Jack’s Fork and the Eleven Point are not without their partisans.”

Boats

The canoe has been the standard boat on the river since the 1960s, and in the counts of 1997 it made up nearly nine craft in ten (Chapter 9). It draws little water, turns quickly in a tight bend and is light enough to drag over a shoal21, which suits a riffle-and-pool river. The johnboat, long and flat-bottomed, has stayed the fishing boat22, and in the late 1990s most local people still did not fish from canoes23. In the early 1980s about nine in ten floaters on the Riverways rented their boats locally20 (Chapter 9). An Eminence outfitter’s fleet in 2026 ran to seventeen-foot canoes, twelve-foot single and fifteen-foot tandem sit-on-top kayaks (boats with the seat molded into the top of the hull), twelve-foot rafts for six people, inner tubes and tubes made to carry a cooler, and the business is authorized by the Park Service to rent johnboats24 as well. Concessioners at Alley Spring and Two Rivers25 rent canoes and tubes inside the park (Chapter 11). The Mountain View floater from Arroll usually goes in a kayak, in normal water, and makes a few stops26 along the way.

By the early 2000s the wooden johnboat was all but gone from Ozark streams, and most float fishermen went in canoes or in aluminum johnboats27 (Chapter 9). The aluminum johnboat, with a jet motor, a bank of lights and a rail across the bow, is also the giggers’ boat28, out on the river after dark in the fall and winter (Chapter 19).

The 1977 folder taught two paddle strokes, the “draw” and the “pry,” for steering around obstructions and keeping a boat parallel with the current. In a draw the paddler reaches out to the side and pulls the blade in toward the hull, which pulls that end of the boat toward the paddle, and in a pry the paddler sets the blade against the hull and levers it outward30, which pushes that end away. The folder also named the beginner’s mistake in rough water: “‘barreling’ through, stroking furiously and using the paddle as a rudder.” When a passage looked too hazardous, its advice was to “step out and walk the canoe or boat through, or portage around,” and rangers held canoe demonstrations for beginners. Experienced floaters, the folder suggested, should think about trips of more than a day29.

Putting in and getting back

The public accesses are few on the upper river and closer together below Alley (Table 20.1), for reasons of road and history31 set out in Chapter 9. Most of the park’s backcountry sites are reached down gravel roads, and some of those roads are too rough for a car with low clearance32.

Other places along the river serve as accesses, among them the backcountry campsites34 near Blue Spring and below it (Chapter 11; Reach D). The Low Water35 name and its crossings are described in Chapter 8. At Eminence the state keeps a public landing on the riverfront by agreement with its owner, the Joshua T. Chilton Memorial Landing33 (Reach J). Access rules are in Part Six.

At high water some floaters start above the Highway Y bridge. Dixon Crossing, on the lower South Prong, was one place to begin until its owners closed it. “It’s possible to start at Dixon Crossing,” the Mountain View resident who grew up at Arroll says, “but most people start at The Forks,” the junction of the prongs, now called the Prongs36. Another Mountain View resident, who moved there in 1979, also named the Prongs37 as the place where high-water floats began. The land along the prongs is private.

Every float needs a way back to the vehicle. In 1977 the Park Service described the two choices that still hold: rental agencies took the rented canoes to the put-in and picked them up with the floaters “at a scheduled time and place,” and floaters with their own canoes had to park “vehicles at both ends of the planned trip”38 or arrange a shuttle with an agency. With two vehicles, a party leaves one at the take-out, rides in the other to the put-in with the boats, and at the end of the day drives back up for the first. On one two-day float a local outfitter shuttled the floaters’ own truck down to Bay Creek39 while they were on the river. In 2026 an Eminence outfitter offered shuttles for private boats but noted that its insurance “does not allow us to move your vehicle,” so the arrangement had to be worked out ahead of time, and it asked its floaters to be off the river by 6 p.m. Sunday through Friday and 7 p.m. on Saturday.

The usual floats

Every access pairs with the next one down, and a handful of pairings are the floats people make most often (Table 20.2).

On the upper river, the Park Service in 1977 called Buck Hollow “the favored access for a long, fast one-day float trip or a lazy, two-day trip to Alley Spring,” and an Eminence outfitter still sells “17 Bridge to Alley Spring” as a two-day40 trip. Highway 17 to Bay Creek, about nineteen miles, makes a leisurely two-day float in spring41. The same outfitter rates the fishing on the Jacks Fork excellent and the twenty-five miles from the 17 Bridge to the Highway 106 bridge at Alley the best of it, and for want of accesses counts the upper river the most primitive42 in that part of the Ozarks. The canyon below Blue Spring is reckoned a premier spring float stream for smallmouth bass, sunfish and goggle-eye46 (Chapter 16). Blue Spring to Rymers carries a boat through the Jacks Fork Natural Area, three miles of canyon with no road into it43, and past Jam Up Cave44 (Chapter 13; Reach E). The Mountain View floater finds Blue Spring to Rymers prettier than Rymers to Bay Creek45.

Below Alley the outfitters’ standard list47 takes over: Alley Spring to Eminence, Eminence to Two Rivers, the two together, and Bay Creek to Alley or to Eminence. One Eminence outfitter in 2026 advertised twenty different trips on the Jacks Fork “depending on the water levels.” Bay Creek to Alley joins the bottom of the upper river to the top of the lower, and its last miles can be its slowest, since the few miles just above Alley Spring are especially wide and shallow and may have to be walked in low water48.

Old miles and new

The standard float distances on the Jacks Fork come from the state’s mile-by-mile guide, which counts mile 0.0 at the South Prong access and reaches the Current at mile 44.6. Outfitters give their own, generally longer, figures. Measured along the surveyed channel, the river from the junction of the prongs to the Current is 46.21 miles long, and the old figures fall further behind the farther downstream they go: by Eminence the guide is about a mile and a quarter short, and by the mouth more than a mile and a half.

How long a float takes

The 1977 folder gave average floating times from Buck Hollow: one hour to Blue Spring, three to Ebb and Flow Spring, six to Bay Creek, eight to Alley Spring, ten to Eminence and thirteen to Two Rivers. Those figures work out to roughly three miles an hour, and the folder did not say what water level it assumed. On the one stretch where the two can be compared, the Mountain View floater’s four hours from Alley to Eminence, a pace of about a mile and a half an hour, are twice the folder’s two. On a July 2013 float that began about a mile above the mouth of Alley Spring’s branch, an Arkansas outdoors editor and his party took five hours, with stops for swimming and lunch, over what they reckoned at seven miles, about the same pace. The Mountain View floater allows for a few stops, thinks that “most people float too fast and miss the best of it,” is unsure whether the rental companies’ float times are about right, and finds the upper river getting harder to float because of gravel (Chapter 15).

Reading the water

In a riffle-and-pool river the decisions come in short stretches. A pool may run a quarter mile with the current barely moving, and then the water speeds up at the tail of the pool and runs through a riffle in a few seconds. Most of what a floater has to decide happens there. (How riffles, pools and bars49 form is explained in Chapters 2 and 15.)

Chutes. The 1977 folder put the basic lesson plainly. White water in a riffle means “rocks lie dangerously close to the surface50 and you are about to enter a ‘chute.’” The way through is “the smooth water shaped like a ‘V’ pointing downstream,” which marks the deepest path between the rocks, and “the water in the chutes runs faster.” The V forms where the current funnels between two rocks or ledges and the water pours through the gap in a smooth tongue. A V that points upstream, with its tip toward the boat, usually means a rock51 just under the surface at the point.

Eddies. Below a rock, a gravel point or the end of a bar the current leaves a pocket of slack water that turns slowly back upstream along the bank. That eddy is the place to stop, to bail, to wait for the rest of a party or to look over the next riffle before running it. The line between the eddy and the main current, where the two run in opposite directions, can catch the bow of a boat entering or leaving it and spin it, so a paddler crosses that line with the boat angled a little upstream and with some speed. A smooth hump of water piled against the upstream face of a rock, a pillow52, shows where the current strikes it.

Bends. On a bend the current swings to the outside53 and piles against the bank or the foot of a bluff. The deep water is there, and so are the undercut banks and the trees that fall from them. At low water the inside of a bend is often a shallow gravel bar, so the only channel deep enough for a boat may run straight along the outside, where the wood collects.

Wood. The folder’s warning was “Watch for rootwads!”, the exposed roots and trunks of fallen trees. “Water rushes under and through them; they can be disastrous for any craft that gets caught in the way.” Water passes through a tangle of roots and limbs, and a boat or a person carried into it does not, so the current can pin55 either against the wood. The folder told floaters on tubes and air mattresses to be especially wary. Rootwads are “most common in the spring flooding season when trees lose their footing in the soggy banks,” and the folder advised asking a ranger where they had been seen. A floater who sees wood ahead early, watches whether the current runs into it and picks a line well above it has time to choose, and where the line is doubtful the folder’s advice to step out and walk54 applies. A tree can come down in a single high water, so a bend that was clear one season may not be clear the next. Hazards and safety56 are taken up in full in Part Six.

Hard places. The narrow run just below Blue Spring can be difficult57 (Reach D), and the last few miles above Alley58 may have to be walked in low water. Above Highway 17, the Mountain View floater who grew up at Arroll names the shoal at Panther Hollow as the hardest spot on the river59 to get through (Reach C).

Dragging. At low water the upper river has to be walked in places. The 1977 folder said there were “only a few thin shoals60 where you will have to step out and lead your canoe” between Highway 17 and Alley in spring, and that in summer “portages have to be made around exposed gravel bars.” Dorrance’s party dragged a loaded skiff over the shoals of the upper river in a drought summer, probably 193461 (Chapter 9).

When to go

The winters are mild enough that the Riverways are in use almost the year around62. The three Geological Survey gauges on the Jacks Fork, at Highway 17, at Alley above the spring branch and at Eminence, post their readings through the day63 (Chapter 14). The gauge at Highway 17 is the one that matters most for the upper river. A rule of thumb for floating the upper Jacks Fork calls for 2 feet or more on the local gauge64, most likely the one at the Highway 17 bridge. The reading measures the water’s height above the gauge’s own zero point, which is a different thing from its depth65 (Chapter 14). The Eminence gauge carries Alley Spring’s water66 and can read well when the upper river is too low to float (Chapter 14).

Floaters watch which way a reading is moving. A river at a good level and falling after a rain makes for a good float; the same reading climbing fast after a night of rain may be the front of a flood. Floods on the upper Jacks Fork rise quickly, and because weather moves east with the river, a storm over the prongs can raise the water under a floater who has seen no rain at all67 (Chapter 14). At about 4 feet the Highway 17 gauge reaches what the National Weather Service calls action stage, about bankfull68. Closures at high water69 are covered in Part Six. Rain also raises the bacteria70 in the river for a time afterward (Chapter 17).

Nights on the gravel

Many floaters spend the night on the river. The gravel bars that make the riffles also make the campsites, broad and open and often across from a bluff. Floods rework a bar often enough to keep most of it bare71, and the state counts bars of this kind, which it calls gravel washes, as one of the natural communities of the Jacks Fork Natural Area, alongside its dolomite cliffs and glades and its forests72. The immense gravel bar just below Jam Up Cave is a popular primitive camping site73. An Eminence outfitter promises its overnight floaters nights spent sleeping “on gravel or sand bars”74 under “the brilliant Ozark stars.”

In the canyon above Alley a bar for the night should stand well above the river if there is any chance of sudden rain75. A narrow valley with no floodplain leaves rising water no room to spread, so the same flood stands higher against the walls76 than it would in an open bottom, and a bar a few feet above the water at supper can be under it by morning. The 1977 folder said the same (“Pick campsites well above river level”77), noted that “flash flood warnings will be issued when possible,” and added a courtesy that still holds: “choose a campsite that can’t be seen from cabins or other structures along the river.” Where camping on the bars is allowed78 and under what limits is set out in Part Six, and the park’s developed and backcountry campgrounds79 are described in Chapter 11.

Some people reach their camps by land. A Mountain View native remembered camping at Rymers80 as a child, riding in an uncle’s Jeep “across neighbors fields to get there.”

One June camp on the upper river lay on a gravel bar under a towering wall of gray dolomite, with boulders the size of cars, fallen from the bluff, resting in deep green water across the river and a riffle gurgling below the bar. A conservation writer who spent the night there and described it in 2026 heard bullfrogs, a green frog and trilling toads from the wet spots on the bar and from a warm slough81 behind it, and later a barred owl and a screech owl82. Night-sky darkness is graded on a nine-step scale that the amateur astronomer John Bortle published in 2001, where one is the darkest sky on earth and nine the sky over a city center. At class two the Milky Way is bright enough to show structure and clouds show only as black gaps83 among the stars. He rated the sky over that bar a little over two, saw the Milky Way stretch from horizon to horizon after midnight, and knew of few places in Missouri84 with so dark a sky. Besides red headlamps, satellites85 and passing planes, the only artificial light he noted was “the faint skyglow from Mountain View, a small city about 5 miles to the southwest.” The Mountain View floater who grew up at Arroll has floated the Jacks Fork at night86.

Leaving it as found

An Eminence outfitter offers every boater a trash bag and asks floaters to pack out87 what they pack in, and a volunteer stream team88 works on the upper river (Chapter 9). The rules89 that govern the river itself, from motors and fishing limits to camping, caves and closures, change from year to year and are collected, with their dates, in Part Six.