The Tara River Canyon (Serbian: Kanjon Tare), also known as the Tara River Gorge, is the longest canyon in Europe and the second-longest in the world. It is 82 km long and plunges to 1,300 meters at its deepest. The canyon is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is a part of Durmitor national park. The Tara River cuts through the canyon. There are rocky and pebbly terraces, sandy beaches, high cliffs, and more than 80 large caves along the canyon. The Tara River Canyon (Montenegrin: Kanjon Tare), also known as the Tara River Gorge, is the longest canyon in Montenegro and Europe and the second-longest in the world. It is 82 kilometers long and is 1,300 meters at its deepest. The canyon is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is a part of Durmitor national park. The Tara River cuts through the canyon.
There are rocky and pebbly terraces, sandy beaches, high cliffs, and more than 80 large caves along the canyon. The canyon is part of the Tara River rafting route. The one day rafting route, from Brstnovica to Sćepan Polje is 18km long and it takes 2 to 3 hours. This part of the canyon is the most exciting because the river has the biggest drop in elevation in the shortest length. There are 21 out of 50 rapids in this part of the Tara. The rapids are Brstanovići, Pećine, the very dangerous Celije rapids and Vjernovički rapids. The Bosnian and the Montenegrin government had plans to flood the Tara Gorge, with the construction of a hydroelectric dam in the Drina River. However, it abandoned this plan in April, 2005 after several successful protests of advocates for the preservation of the canyon. But, in September 2006, a protocol for cooperation between Slovenian company "Petrol" and Montenegrin company "Montenegro-bonus" was signed, and the building of an electric plant with initial power of 40 or 60 megawatts is planned, despite all efforts to protect the gorge.
The Tara River Canyon (Montenegrin: Kanjon Tare), also known as the Tara River Gorge, is the longest canyon in Montenegro and Europe and the second-longest in the world. It is 82 kilometers long and is 1,300 meters at its deepest. The canyon is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is a part of Durmitor national park. The Tara River cuts through the canyon.
There are rocky and pebbly terraces, sandy beaches, high cliffs, and more than 80 large caves along the canyon. The canyon is part of the Tara River rafting route. The one day rafting route, from Brstnovica to Sćepan Polje is 18km long and it takes 2 to 3 hours. This part of the canyon is the most exciting because the river has the biggest drop in elevation in the shortest length. There are 21 out of 50 rapids in this part of the Tara. The rapids are Brstanovići, Pećine, the very dangerous Celije rapids and Vjernovički rapids. The Bosnian and the Montenegrin government had plans to flood the Tara Gorge, with the construction of a hydroelectric dam in the Drina River. However, it abandoned this plan in April, 2005 after several successful protests of advocates for the preservation of the canyon. But, in September 2006, a protocol for cooperation between Slovenian company "Petrol" and Montenegrin company "Montenegro-bonus" was signed, and the building of an electric plant with initial power of 40 or 60 megawatts is planned, despite all efforts to protect the gorge.
In the surroundings of wonderful plunging into the abysses, bellow the steep slopes sometimes more of a thousand meters deep, cutting forcibly its very way between the Bjelasnica, Sinjajevina, Ljubisnje and Durmitor mountains, flows one of the most beautiful Montenegro rivers, the TARA river. Like a cut furrow between mountain peaks, the clear- water mountain river flows, and its very waters, from time to time make for wonderful landscapes in tame and fertile valleys in which acres, orchards, forests and meadows may be seen, with its flocks of sheep and goats, very often together with game graze. The river flows even further through the abyss, over it, on its stony slopes the lonely pines to skies pointing, which, the poet would say, from the very stone grow, the stone which plunges itself down, to the depths. The river flows, like hiding from amorous looks regarding the cascades, the stones hidden well bellow, in the depths of the river waters, but, like many things hidden, seen because of its very clear waters. And so Tara flows, like looking for somebody innocent, like herself, to give herself to him. So beautiful, so clear all along its flow, forcing those in love with her to name her THE TEAR OF EUROPE. The Tara canyon, unique in its depth of usually thousand meters, someplace even a thousand and three hundred meters deep, is placed right behind the Grand Canyon in Colorado, USA. Tara, at its end making confluence with Piva, and giving birth to Drina, is some hundred and fifty kilometers long, and is the longest Montenegro river. In its part through The National Park Durmitor, Tara has a mean fall of 3.6 meters/kilometer, making a host of waterfalls and cascades possible, thus creating with its uniqueness THE MONTENEGRO COLORADO. All along its flow, Tara gets large quantities of water from numerous sources, and quite a few tributaries. The most important tributaries on the left Tara side are Ljutica and Susica, and the most important tributaries from the right side being Vaskovaska rijeka and Draga. The most important source is the source Bajlovica sige, a source placed on the left bank of the Tara river giving to the Tara a few hundred liters per second, where the water sourcing from the Bucevica cave falls into the Tara more than thirty meters high, and more than a hundred and fifty meters bright. Very special are the Tara cascades. The roar from the cascades is heard on the very peaks of the canyon. There are more than forty cascades, the most famous being: Djavolje lazi, Sokolovina, Bijeli kamen, Gornji tepacki buk, Donji tepacki buk etc. Because of the quality of its water, and because of its unique ecological system, Tara in 1977 was put into the programme “Covjek i biosfera” (Men and Biosphere) and inscribed into the ecological biosphere reservations of the World, being thus protected under an internationally issued convention.
