Thornton's Rafting Resort and Campground
17 RV Sites, 4 Cabins, 3 Tent Sites, 1 Mobile Home, 2 Onsite RV/Trailers
Thornton's Rafting Resort and Campground in Athelstane, Wisconsin, provides RV sites, cabins, and tent camping alongside the Peshtigo River's whitewater rafting access in Marinette County's Northwoods country — a family-friendly resort whose on-site Camp Inn bar with billiards, darts, foosball, and video games gives guests the indoor social space that the Peshtigo River country's wet-weather rafting days specifically warrant, and whose proximity to one of Wisconsin's premier whitewater rivers makes it the natural overnight destination for guests coming to paddle the Peshtigo's technical Class II through IV drops. The resort's combination of water recreation access, diverse accommodation, and the social programming that the Camp Inn sustains gives it the multi-dimensional character that river resort campgrounds at their best consistently deliver.
RV sites, cabins, and tent camping areas give the resort the accommodation range to serve the full spectrum of Peshtigo River adventure visitors — from families in cabins who want the river adjacent experience without tent camping to hardcore paddlers in tent sites who want the most immersive connection to the river environment. The Camp Inn bar's pool table, darts, foosball, and video games provide the evening social infrastructure that river resort campgrounds sustain most effectively when the outdoor programming shifts indoors after a full day of whitewater. Pets are welcome.
The Peshtigo River through Marinette County is Wisconsin's most technically challenging and most widely respected whitewater river — a waterway whose watershed in the Nicolet National Forest and the Peshtigo River State Forest sustains Class II through Class IV rapids across its multiple run sections from the Caldron Falls Flowage downstream to the Lake Noquebay corridor. The First and Second Drop sections on the lower Peshtigo provide the Class IV technical rapids that Wisconsin whitewater kayakers and experienced rafters specifically pursue in a state where the generally flatwater river network makes the Peshtigo's gradient exceptional, while the Upper Peshtigo's continuous Class II-III paddling delivers the sustained exciting water that guided commercial raft trips specifically feature.
Marinette County's Northwoods landscape — the Peshtigo River State Forest's 225,000 acres of northern Wisconsin mixed conifer and hardwood forest, the Caldron Falls and High Falls Flowages, and the Mountain Bay State Trail's rail-trail cycling through the Marinette County forest — gives resort guests the complete northern Wisconsin outdoor recreation portfolio beyond the river itself. The Peshtigo Fire Museum in the city of Peshtigo, 30 miles east, commemorates the October 8, 1871 fire that killed approximately 1,500 to 2,500 people on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire — one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history, historically overshadowed by the Chicago fire's greater national news coverage despite its far larger death toll.
Thornton's Rafting Resort and Campground operates through the Northwoods season from spring through fall, with the spring high-water rafting season from April through June providing the most powerful and most technically demanding Peshtigo River conditions and the summer season delivering the most comfortable camping weather. Fall color in Marinette County's northern Wisconsin forest peaks from early October through mid-October in a maple, aspen, and birch display that the Peshtigo River corridor specifically frames with river reflections and forested bank foliage that river-level paddling reveals in its most intimate form. Reserve sites and cabins ahead for Memorial Day weekend and the peak spring whitewater season, when Peshtigo River visitor traffic fills the Athelstane corridor's limited accommodation.
from $49/night
