16 Miles of Continuous White Water

(The Most Continuous White Water Rafting in New England)

• 2015 Season:May 2-Oct 3 (Click above for the 2015 release dates)
• Meeting Location: 36 Main St • Route 201 • Bingham • Maine 04920
• Meeting Time: Click here for meeting times and dates.
  (We recommend checking in 30 minutes early.)
• River Rating: Class 2-4+, Click here for river rating and dates.
• River Type: Continuous Rapids, Technical to High Flows
  Average River Flow: Click here for river flows and dates.
• Range of River Flow: 2400-7000 CFS
• River Length: 16 Miles, 4.5 Hours on the River
• Trips: Full River, Two Day Trip
• High Adventure Sport Rafts Available: River Lunch: Steak, Chicken, Veggie Burgers, Salad, Desert, Beverages
• Minimum Reservation Size: One Person
• Minimum Age: 8 Years (Summer & Surfing Flow); 10 Years (High Water); 12 Years (Spring High Water)
• Camping: Tent Camping, Platform Tents, RV Camping with Hookups
• Lodging: Cabins
• Restaurant: Patrick’s Restaurant, Game Room and Pub on Site
• Reservations: Call Toll Free 800-348-8871

The Dead River is a 16-mile long, classic, remote Maine “gem". It’s become a rafting river more recently than The Kennebec or The Penobscot River, because it previously had no regularly scheduled dam releases. Even today, it doesn’t have “daily releases" like The Kennebec and Penobscot; because, the lake upstream of dam is too shallow. This is too bad, because the whitewater rafting on this river is nothing short of amazing.

With this in mind, if you want to river raft “The Dead" (and it’s highly recommended), then you have only the release dates published for each year. Of these dates, theres really only 2 types of release; “moderate-to-high", and “moderate". Spring releases are almost always the highest. Summer is when you the moderate releases dominate. Below is a discription of our Dead River trips;

You begin your Dead River whitewater rafting adventure by driving by bus into the Maine woods. During this bus drive on paper company roads, don’t be surprised if you see a Moose, a Bear, a Deer, logging trucks, an Osprey or an Eagle. Except for all the “temporaries" (all the rafters and kayakers that is), this is a completely undeveloped portion of Maine – truly beautiful.

Once you get your raft, warm-up, and then head downstream, the rapids are fairly continuous (one after another), and they grow in difficulty as the day progresses. The rapids on The Dead River are rated Class III-IV+; shifting more to one rating or another based on the level. In contrast to the Kennebec, The Dead is a “pool-and-drop" river. This means that there are rapids and then breaks. However, some rapids are short and some are long. For example; one rapid is about a mile-long (called “Mile-Long"). Other notable rapids are “Spencer’s Rips", “Humpty Dumpty", “Elephant Rock". “Little Poplars" and “Big Poplars". “Big Poplars" is near the end of the run and is the hardest rapid on the river – but maybe the most fun too!

For more on rafting The Dead River and your Maine Adventure Vacation with North Country Rivers, reserve trip and lodging space by using our online reservations form. You can also call us toll free in the US and Canada at 1-800-348-8871, or, e-mail us! We’ll make sure that your Dead River Adventure Vacation is the “Thrill of a Lifetime"!