Hickory Landing
A Park Service landing at River Mile 7 on the Lower Current, at the end of a gravel road off Highway E, and the shore point for the Lower Current's Cave Spring.
Cataract Landing
A Park Service landing on the Lower Current a fifth of a mile below Hickory Landing: the take-out for the Big Spring to Cataract float and the last named landing above Gooseneck.
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Cataract Landing is the second of the twin landings at the bottom of the Lower Current, two tenths of a mile below Hickory Landing by the Forest Service's float table and 6.2 miles above Gooseneck, where the Riverways ends. The Park Service's own paddling page times the float from Big Spring to Cataract at about four hours, which makes this landing the standard take-out for one of the park's classic day runs.
It is the least built-up of the landings in this guide: the Park Service names it on its Roads and Trails maps and carries it in its public map data as a canoe and kayak access, but no official source gives it facilities beyond the landing itself. What Cataract offers is position, the end of the Big Spring run and the gate to the empty last reach of the park, where the river slides the final six miles to Gooseneck with no other named access in between.
Cataract shares Hickory Landing's road in: Highway 60 east from Van Buren, Highway 21 south, then Highway E and gravel to the river, with Cataract the farther of the two landings on that road. No fee and no hours are stated for it by any official source, and as everywhere on this river, high water rewrites the plan, so check the posted river levels before you drive the gravel.
Good to know before you go
- Fees
- No fee is stated by the official source for this landing (recorded as unknown). No entrance pass is required anywhere in Ozark National Scenic Riverways.
- Hours and seasons
- No hours and no seasonal closure are stated by the official source. River conditions and flood closures can change access; the Park Service posts Current River levels and closures.
- Parking
- Road-end parking at the landing, reached by the same route as Hickory Landing (Highway 60 east from Van Buren, Highway 21 south, Highway E to the end of the pavement and gravel to the river), a short distance beyond it; the Park Service's Roads and Trails maps place Cataract Landing by roads NPS 786 and County Road E-235.
- Accessibility
- No accessibility statement is published for this landing.
- Nearest town
- Van Buren, Missouri
- Coordinates
- 36.89644, -90.90735
- Access type
- Canoe and kayak landing
What you can do there
- River landing on the Current River, 0.2 miles below Hickory Landing
- Take-out for the Big Spring to Cataract float (about 4 hours, National Park Service)
- Put-in for the last 6.2 miles of the Riverways down to Gooseneck
Best for
Filed under
Nearby places
Big Spring Historic District
A National Register historic district of stone and timber buildings the Civilian Conservation Corps built at Big Spring in the 1920s and 1930s: a dining lodge, cabins, and a museum, closed for restoration but walkable today.
Big Spring
One of the largest springs in the United States, pouring an average of 289 million gallons of clear blue water a day into the Current River, four miles south of Van Buren.
Big Spring Campground
The Park Service's main campground in the Big Spring area: 123 reservable sites on the Current River, a boat ramp, electric hookups in one loop, and Big Spring itself within walking distance.