ABOUT TARA RIVER
The wildest, the most beautiful, the clearest mountain river in Montenegro, also called “The Tear of Europe”; has it spring below Komovi (1250 m height above sea level) and flows through its canyon for 144 km all the way to Šćepan Polje (433 m height above the sea level) where it makes (together with Piva River) Drina River - one of the longest rivers in South-eastern Europe and also the richest in water.
Canyon of the Tara river is 1,330m deep, and represent the deepest canyon in Europe, and the second deepest in the world (after the Grand Canyon in Colorado). Major part of Tara River flow is in the area of “Durmitor National Park”. On the 4th September 1980, National Park Durmitor was enlisted in UNESCO’s World Heritage; meeting the three conditions: geological, hydrological and biological phenomena.
The most attractive part of the canyon, which is 90 km long (from Šljivanskog to Šćepan Polje), is full of rapids (about 50 km) wild tributaries, waterfalls, rich forests full of various trees which are scraping the sky; old for centuries and can be up to 50 meters high.
Tara River has lately become very popular among tourists keen in rafting on wild waters. According to the rafting categorization, Tara river got mark 3-4 (the Grand Canyon in Colorado has the mark 5), which means that its attractiveness and excitement is on the very top. There are 80 very interesting, large caves in the Tara Canyon. Tara River is also the largest drinking water reservoir, and you can drink from it while rafting!
ABOUT RAFTING
Rafting (or in English white water rafting) has it origins in transport of the woods from the high mountain areas to sawmills. In order to make this transport easy and cheap, the flows of the rivers were used. People who were transporting woods by jumping from the one trunk to another were called triftari, and among them, famous were triftari from Drina River, Tara River, Lim River and Ibar River. This way of transport was later replaced by the road transport: however interest for rafting remained as a part of our tourist attraction. Also, this way we keep memory on our ancestors who had fought with rapids, passes and narrows of wild mountain rivers.
Rafting is also a sport which is about several teams in professional boats (4 to 6 members of each team), competing in three disciplines: slalom, sprint and descent. It is practiced on the rivers of the 3rd class (in accordance with international classification).
Tara River has the longest rafting tradition in our country, with famous deep canyon and crystal clear water. It is a great attraction and tourists like to visit it.