Kayaking on the coast: 5 trails offer access to rivers, bays and beaches

Given all the water flowing through Lower Alabama, you’d expect to find plenty of opportunities to explore with a kayak, canoe or paddleboard. And you’d be right.

There’s an abundance of waterways, and on any of them you can find access points. There’s also been a trend toward blueway development: Mobile County has been developing a blueway for several years and says it’s approaching a point where it will begin focusing public attention on potential trail sites. The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant program has mapped some of Baldwin County’s many access points into an Eastern Shore Blueway.

Other blueways and kayak trails in the region are a little further along, offering incredible access to unique coastal ecosystems and even opportunities for overnight trips. Here’s a look at some of the best:

The camping platforms on Alabama’s Upper Bartram Canoe Trail don’t offer much in the way of amenities, but it’s hard to argue with the views you get, as with morning coffee at Dead Lake Island.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]

The Upper Bartram Canoe Trail

North of Stockton in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the state maintains six campsites. Two are land-based, the rest consist of floating platforms; they’re reachable via a network of public and private launches. The official trail guide lists a variety of itineraries one can take among them, and there’s an excellent interactive website that helps plot trips and reserve campsites. Navigating the delta is not to be taken lightly, but the Upper Bartram trail offers wonderful opportunities to plunge into the wonders of “America’s Amazon.”

Perdido River Conservation — The Perdido River is lined with countless beaches of fine gravel or sand, meaning you’re never far away from a good spot to stop for a meal or a swim. On the Alabama side, the land along the Perdido River Canoe Trail is owned by the state.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]

The Perdido River Canoe Trail

The Perdido River forms the squiggly line that separates Alabama from Florida at the western tip of the Panhandle. It’s been the subject of an exceptional conservation effort, and one piece of that, the Perdido River Wildlife Management Area, stretches for 19 miles along its shore. Alabama’s Perdido River Canoe Trail consists of a series of launches and shelters along the winding blackwater river. It’s simply an incredible public resource for anyone wanting to plot an overnight trip. The same excellent website that serves the Bartram Trails provides interactive mapping and reservations for the Perdido trail.

Nov. 11-12, 2021. — The Mudhole Creek Shelter is the northernmost campsite on Alabama’s Lower Bartram Canoe Trail, making it the one farthest from Causeway and Bayway traffic.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]

The Lower Bartram Canoe Trail

If you’re venturing out on the Upper Bartram Trail, you’re going into a wilderness where the interaction of river current and tidal flow mean you can’t always take “upstream” and “downstream” for granted. The Lower Bartram is a bit more beginner-friendly. It consists of three platform campsites north of the Causeway in Mobile. Each offers the chance to spend a night among the grassy expanses of the lower Delta. Again, the state website provides tons of information and a reservation system.

The Jeff Friend Kayak Launch on the north shore of Little Lagoon provides easy access to a body of protected water west of Gulf Shores.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]

Coastal Alabama Back Bay Blueway – Gulf Shores

Stop by the Gulf Shores Welcome Center and they’ll be happy to give you a nicely printed, splash-resistant brochure on local kayaking opportunities, and a couple on local kayak rental companies. On the Gulf Shores side, there are some nice launches that give access to the protected waters of Little Lagoon, partially bordered by the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, and Gulf State Park’s Lake Shelby and Middle Lake. If you want a guided experience, Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism maintains an online guide to local rental and paddle tour operations.

Orange Beach Waterfront Park provides parking and a sandy access point from which to launch a kayak and explore waters around Bear Point and Wolf Bay.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]

Coastal Alabama Back Bay Blueway – Orange Beach

The Back Bay Blueway map identifies a lot of launches in Orange Beach. To be honest, many of them suffer from limited parking and sketchy access, so it pays to scout out a site before committing. The shorelines here are much more developed than in Little Lagoon or Gulf State Park. But the opportunities are still there. Cotton Bayou provides access to the busy waters inside the Perdido Pass, for example. If you prefer to get closer to nature, look a bit further north to the Graham Creek Nature Preserve, which provides a dedicated kayak launch with floating dock. And here’s one that’s not on the trail map: Put in at the Josephine Park Boat Launch in Elberta and when you hit the waters of Cotton Bayou, you’ll be just a few minutes’ paddling away from the burgers and bushwackers of Pirates Cove.