Screw Auger Falls

Screw Auger Falls is located adjacent to Route 26 in Grafton Notch State Park about a mile west of the eastern entrance to the park. The parking area for the falls is signed from the road and is hard to miss. The viewpoint for the falls is reached by walking about 100 yards along the fenced gorge, much of which is across bare bedrock rather than established trails or paths. The upper falls are located about 100 feet upstream.Screw Auger Falls is the final of three significant waterfalls along the Bear River within Grafton Notch State Park, as well as one of the featured attractions of the park and one of the more well-known waterfalls in Maine to boot. The falls consist of two distinct sets of drops separated by about 100 linear feet. The upper falls spill a clean 12 feet over a broad ledge, and may split into two channels depending on the volume of the river. After swishing through a sharp S-bend in bedrock, the river then plunges over the lower falls and into the Screw Auger Gorge proper in back-to-back-to-back succession; the first and last of which about 5 feet tall each, and the middle is a clean plunge of 18 feet. Both above and below the main falls several round potholes can be seen dotting various parts of the gorge – several of those below the falls have large boulders trapped in the pots, actively but slowly still carving them out further. The Bear River upstream from Screw Auger Falls drains from a basin which covers approximately 6-1/2 square miles in area, and while there are no substantial lakes feeding the basin, there are several small ponds and bogs which help regulate the flow of the river through the year and ensure a modest flow of water in the falls at all times.