Bull Branch (of the Sunday River)
Bull Branch Road &/or Goose Eye Brook to Sunday River Road
| Difficulty | IV-V |
| Length | 1.6 mi |
| Avg Gradient | 165 fpm |
| Gauge | Wild River at Gilead, Maine |
| Flow Rate as of 26 minutes | 143 cfsbelow recommended |
| Reach Info Last Updated | May 3, 2023 |
River Description
The Bull Branch is easily accessed by driving northwest up the Sunday River Rd. from Rt. 26 in Newry, Maine. After the road turns to dirt and crosses the Bull Branch (there is a cool falls near the bridge), bear right up Bull Branch Road.
There is a parking lot towards the top of the Bull Branch Road. If the water is high, you can start your run on either the upper Bull Branch (on the right as you hike upstream) or Goose Eye Brook (on the left as you hike upstream). From there, either hike ~100 feet left into Goose Eye Brook and run the slides, or hike up the Bull Branch Road and cut right into the woods to find the Bull Branch. If you hike in to the Bull Branch from here, be aware of a short but rowdy looking gorge with some nasty holes and difficult safety. If the water is low, put in below the confluence of the Bull Branch and Goose Eye Brook.
The Bull Branch has beautiful, clean pool-drop class IV rapids with a few rowdier and less-clean rapids mixed in. There are great ledge boofs and boulder garden rapids. The hardest regularly run drop (V-) is a narrow nearly vertical 8' drop with an undercut on the right and a large swirling eddy on the right that is VERY DIFFICULT TO GET A SWIMMER OUT OF, which is especially dangerous when the water is frigid in the early Spring.
The class V drops (one in the middle of the run and the others on either side of the island at takeout) tend to be manky and pitony. All have been run, I believe first by Chris Hull and Anna Staehli (sp?), even the monstrous slide above the put-in on Goose Eye Brook.
An additional historical note: This is one of the best runs in Maine! I ran into a guy who ran it in the late 80's ( a Sunday River employee) and he peaked my interest. We started to run this river top to bottom, all of the drops, around 1990, including Goose Eye. But our runs didn't start from where the put in parking lot is described here but by walking up a additional mile upstream on an old road to wher
...River Features
Put In
The bridge at the confluence of Goose Eye Brook and Bull Branch is the usual put in, though you can put in much higher up either of them.
Room of Doom
Room of Doom is usually a nice ramp to boof, but there is a nasty pocket on the right, and swimmers have a hard time exiting the walled in eddy on the left.
Frenchman's Hole
Frenchman's Hole is best known as a summer swimming spot, though for boaters the little rapid just past it is even better at producing swimmers.
Take Out
The locals refer to the takeout as Twin Bridges. The easiest way out is the left side of the right channel just past the bridge abutment.
Trip Reports
Log in to add a reportGot back on Bull Branch after several years at a nice low flow, though everything flooded yesterday (Wild hit 13 feet).
There is some wood moving around with the flooding, though the logs in Room of Doom and Frenchmans Gorge have been cleared. There is a new bit of wood of unknown size and position in one of the upper drops, and there is a lot of wood getting caught above Twin Bridges.
The flooding also did a good bit of damage to the road, so expect the gate to be closed for a bit longer. We hiked up to the bridge over Goose Eye and ran down to Twin Bridges, where we got stuck for a while due to an excavator trying to fix a washout back towards town.