I don’t mind cold weather a bit, but I hate cold water. That was my only worry this morning, as I squirmed into my wet suit and spray jacket for a trip with Zoar Outdoor down the Concord River in Lowell.

Yeah, whitewater rafting in downtown Lowell. Who’d have thunk it?

Though this was their first trip of the season (and a media junket), and though a steady drizzle kept the sun at bay, I need not have worried about the cold. With a few layers of neoprene, the water’s fine, and the river is an absolute wa-bleeping-hoo blast.

The Concord River is formed by the confluence of the Sudbury and Assebet, which flow north from around Ashland and Shrewsbury, Mass. There’s no dam controlling the flow, just rain and snow. The river can be run anywhere from 600 CFS to 2,500 CFS, our guides said, and it was running at about 1,100 for our trip today, which made for the second of the three rapids, Three Beauties, perfect for surfing.

What with today’s rain, the river should be even more fun this weekend, especially when the sun comes back out to play.

The trips are show and go: Zoar provides the wetsuit, spray jacket and PFD, paddles and all. You need only some gym shorts, wool socks and synthetic top to wear on the trip, and dry clothes for when it’s done.

I’ve rafted on the Kennebec River in Maine, the Youghigheny in Pennsylvania and the New River in W. Va., and the Concord was every bit as much fun as any of them, though the Kennebec tastes better. The scenery was quite different (who knew that television sets float?), but that’s part of the fun. The trip includes a take out through the working canal locks next to the Doubletree Hotel (where the trip begins), a feature unique to any commercial rafting voyage. Another unique feature: you get to run the same stretch twice. It’s even more fun the second time, when you know what’s coming.

Our guides were some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, and I am having fun even just writing about it. The intrepid photographer Grant Morris took his multi-thousand dollar camera along for the ride, so we should have some great art for the story that I am writing about the experience and the people (as soon as I’m done writing this here), and I will post one or two as soon as I get ‘em.