Contoocook River from Contoocook Village to Penacook

The Contoocook River is a great kayaking river. Lots of twists and turns and it’s smooth paddling in most locations.

My buddy’s Eric, Brian and myself decided to make the journey down from Contoocook Village and paddle a little over 10 miles down to the Penacook boat launch.

We spotted a car down in Penacook and we drove two vehicles up to the Village. When we arrived at the boat launch in Contoocook Village there was plenty of parking.

There was also a farmers market setting up and some live music in the gazebo. The launch is just below some rapids that go under a covered bridge.

Just as we were about to set out, a group of paddlers got dropped off from Contoocook Canoe Company.

The current is very calm and even the rains from the night before did not make it hard to paddle.

The first half of the paddle we did a lot of floating and chatting, so we had to make up some time on the second half. There was a lot of pontoon boats on the river and more kept coming as the day went on.

We had a small lunch break on a shallow section of the river. The sun was starting to beat down so I’m glad it was also shaded. Temps were in the upper 80’s.

The further down we paddled the busier the river got. We got to a public beach that was already busy, so we did not stop.

From here there are a lot more houses camps along the river. More pontoons and lots of kayaks and paddle boards.

We were paddling at a pretty good pace and before we knew it we could see the boat launch and made our way toward it.

We loaded up Eric’s Kayak on his car and we all went back up to the Village to grab the other vehicles. It was a little bit if shuffling around but it was a real pretty drive.

Once we got all the boats loaded we headed down to the Cheers in Concord for a post paddle beer.