Cohannet Bridge to Bird Sanctuary

This is a park-and-play 1/4 mile section of class I-II quick water rapids. Kind of flows all year but its best run after heavy rains or in the spring. Deepish water with small surfable waves and holes. The put in can be kind of tricky. This involves either parking at the gas station (not recommended) or dropping the boats off and finding parking up the the street. The put-in is next to the bridge on Cohannet St. The rapids can also be accessed by parking at the Boyden Park Bird Sanctuary and paddling up river maybe half of a mile. The river is wide and has slow moving water so this is pretty easy. Then hiking up on either side of the river once you hit the quick water section. First hit is the Bridge Wave - this is a small wave directly under the bridge after the put in. Second is Bird House - shallow quick water. Good for practicing ferrying and peel outs. The end is pretty deep (~5' depending on water level). You can actually get tail squirts on the eddy line. Third hit is Sore Gap - biggest and most fun section on the river. Class II when the water is high. Run the V directly in the middle. The water in the final drop is 5-6 feet deep without too many rocks hidden underwater. The drop creates a pretty fun hole that you can surf in and its not too sticky in case you flip. However the water speeds up due to a squeeze from a concrete wall so if you swim here you want to get to the side as quickly as possible. Fourth hit is Wood Stock - very fast moving water between an old bridge foundation. A lot of fun little waves form here. The river splits here and you should stay left to while descending. You can hike up through the shallow water on river right back to Sore Gap. I would recommend skipping Woodstock and just playing around in the hole at Sore Gap. Im working on clearing a path but if you run Woodstock you kind of have to hike back up river right.