Outdoor Recreation: Parks

Merrimack River Outdoor Education Area and Conservation Center

Address: 54 Portsmouth Street, Concord, NH 03301
Phone: (603) 224-9945

This 75-acre site houses the headquarters of the Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests in a solar-heated facility that's worth stopping for by itself (it includes a snack bar and a small gift shop). Pick up a guidebook at the office and follow the steep wooden stairs down the ravine to the floodplain along the Merrimack River for a self-guided tour through tree farms and amid the marshes and channels of the floodplain. You'll have a chance to see a variety of wildlife, from woodpeckers to muskrat, as you move from upland wooded habitat to open plains and wetlands.