TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - July 6, 2011) - Rainy River Resources Ltd. (News - Market indicators) (the "Company" or "Rainy") is pleased to announce assay results from the Rainy River Gold Project in northwest Ontario where the Company is completing 170,000 metres of Diamond drilling in 2011. Results are summarized in Table 1.

Highlights

• Western Area continues to expand with high-grade gold and silver
• NR11719 intersects 1,335.0 g/t gold and 76.7 g/t silver over 1.5 metres located 42 metres below surface
• NR11711 intersects 4.4 g/t gold over 10.5 metres and NR11731 intersects 3.9 g/t gold over 22.5 metres
• Infill program returns 1.2 g/t gold and 1.8 g/t silver over 93 metres in ODM Zone

Western Area

The Western Area is a new exploration target located approximately 800 metres northwest of the Beaver Pond ("BP") Zone, lying within a large magnetic low trend that hosts the Rainy River gold deposit and stretches over 10 km to the west. Drilling has continued on this zone since the first significant gold intersection was reported in the March 30, 2011 press release, where hole NR11648 intersected 7.1 g/t gold and 23.0 g/t silver over 9.0 metres.

Eleven new shallow holes are reported in this release. The three most prominent holes include NR11719, which intersected 1,335.0 g/t gold and 76.7 g/t silver over 1.5 metres directly at the overburden-bedrock contact, located 42 metres below surface. In addition, hole NR11711 intersected 4.4 g/t gold and 1.2 g/t silver over 10.5 metres, and hole NR11731 intersected 3.9 g/t gold and 9.8 g/t silver over 22.5 metres. Significant gold mineralization has been intersected at relatively shallow depths, with results beginning to demonstrate the potential for continuity that may eventually develop into a new near-surface mineralized zone. Drilling will continue to expand this mineralization to the south and also towards the main resource pit.

Infill Program

The first results from the infill program returned wide intersections of continuous gold mineralization. This program is primarily designed to upgrade inferred resources into the measured and indicated categories for incorporation into a future feasibility study. Drill hole KCBL101, originally drilled for geotechnical purposes, has now been assayed and has returned 1.2 g/t gold and 1.8 g/t silver over 93 metres in the heart of the ODM zone from 230 to 323 metres down hole including 4.1 g/t gold and 3.0 g/t silver over 9.0 metres from 248 – 257 metres down hole. NR11718 returned values of 1.8g/t gold over 39 metres, including 4.2 g/t gold over 13.0 metres in the 17 East Zone, while NR11729 returned values of 1.0 g/t gold over 11.0 metres, and NR11724 returned values of 16.5 g/t gold and 16.9 g/t silver over 1.5 metres. Six rigs are currently on site for infill drilling.

District Exploration

The Company's district exploration program is ongoing, with one drill rig following up on gold-in-till anomalies identified from past reverse circulation drill programs, and a second drill rig is completing a north – south fence of stratigraphic holes through the property for geological purposes. Exploration drilling north of the main deposit area continues to return encouraging results, including drill hole NR11692 with 7.9 g/t gold reported over 1.5 metres, drill hole NR11693 with 34.2 g/t gold over 1.5 metres, and drill hole NR11694 which intersected 5.3 g/t gold over 1.5 metres. 

Commentary

Raymond Threlkeld, President and CEO, adds "These results are very encouraging and confirm our belief that the Western Area has the potential to add resources to the project. Grades and widths appear to be increasing as we explore towards the Beaver Pond Zone, and the Company will be conducting further drilling in this area over the next few months. Early results from our district exploration program have identified several narrow, high-grade intercepts which represent excellent target areas for further exploration."

Qualified Persons

Rainy River's exploration program in Richardson Township is being supervised by Kerry Sparkes, P.Geo., Vice-President Exploration, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Garett Macdonald, P.Eng., Vice President Operations and Kerry Sparkes P.Geo. are the persons responsible for the content of this news release. The Company continues to implement a rigorous QA/QC program to ensure best practices in sampling and analysis of drill core. All drill core is marked for sampling and then split in half with a Diamond saw blade. Samples are placed in sealed bags with security tags. All samples were assayed using a standard fire assay, 30 gram nominal sample weight with an AA finish. Over-limit samples were re-assayed with a gravimetric finish. Samples with visible gold were automatically analyzed for Ore Grade by 1,000g screen fire assay, with coarse and fine fractions being combined proportionately and the fine fraction being assayed twice. Standards, blanks and duplicates are inserted every 25 metres. ALS Canada Ltd. performed primary assaying, with duplicates being analyzed at Activation Laboratories Ltd. ALS Canada Ltd. and Activation Laboratories Ltd. implement independent QA/QC protocols that include the insertion of certified blanks and standards as part of their routine analysis.

About Rainy River Resources Ltd.

Rainy River Resources is a Canadian precious metals exploration company whose key asset is the Rainy River Gold Project. With over $120 million in cash and short term investments, the Company is well funded to conduct a dual-focused drilling program consisting of: 1) definition Diamond drilling of the main gold resources in preparation for scoping and pre-feasibility studies, and 2) selective Diamond-drill testing of high-priority gold targets defined primarily by RC drilling within the large gold system centred in Richardson Township. The Company's property is extremely well located in the southwestern corner of northern Ontario near the U.S. border. It is accessed by a network of roads and is close to hydro-electric infrastructure. The Rainy River district has a skilled labour force and is one of the lowest-cost areas for mineral exploration and development. The Company is also working to advance the early-stage discoveries at its TPK Joint Venture Property, also in Ontario, where it can earn a 51% interest in the property from Northern Superior Resources Inc. Ontario has low political risk and, according to the annual Fraser Institute global survey of the mining industry, has consistently ranked as one of the top jurisdictions embracing mineral development.

RAINY RIVER RESOURCES LTD.

Raymond W. Threlkeld, President & CEO

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include gold prices, results of exploration and development activities, regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of materials and equipment, timeliness of government approvals, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive. Investors and others who base themselves on the Company's forward-looking statements should carefully consider the above factors as well as the uncertainties they represent and the risk they entail. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information. 

Table 1 Summary of Results

To view the first figure associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/rr0706fig1.pdf.

To view the second figure associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/rr0706fig2.pdf.