A hiking trip to New Hampshire's White Mountain range just wouldn't be complete without dropping in at the spectacular Franconia Notch to at least visit the Basins. That location aptly demonstrates the capacity and power of water to wear away, over time, tough granite that had already been affected by the retreat of glaciers in an ice age long past.

The initial introduction to the geological site is impressive enough, striding through a forest of trees, great hemlocks and yellow birches, among spruce, oak, pine and underbrush comprised of dogwood and various other shrubs and wildflowers in season.

In the tourist season, usually once school is out for the summer, the area is suffused with people attracted to the guidebook promise of splendidly geological formations of ancient rock, and the accompanying clear mountain stream sliding down from above, over rockfalls and gently sloping, large-area shoulders of sheer granite, gradually rising on the side of mountains. It is the Pemigawasset river that begins its life from being fed in this way, at this site.

A gentle stroll on paved pathways and over rustic bridges brings the curious to the main basin with its carved bowl
of grey granite, pock-marked here and there with resolute green-black lichens, as the clear water swirls around on its voyage, descending and finding its way to the main river, itself snaking through the forested landscape beyond.

Go a little further and you see other, less dramatically-carved, but most beautiful cavities hosting the descending waters, creating their own landscapes over which those who appreciate nature's beauty linger and take photographs to aid their memories of this exceptional experience.

And those who have the endurance and the additional curiosity to climb, can take a trail that will lead them on a steady rising ascent alongside the descending waterfalls, over to the left where can be seen wide grey-brown granite shelves with the water coursing, burbling, and sometimes shouting, spraying and bubbling in its descent. The shelves beckon, to step aside from the rock-strewn and tree-root-interlaced trail onto the creek bed itself, to sit awhile on the dry granite, look about, revel in the beauty that surrounds.

Clamber high enough and the view over the site is spectacular, particularly on the clear, sunny day when an unobstructed, albeit relatively narrow scene is laid out below of the mountain ranges beyond, and their forested sides, bare granite tops glinting in the sun.

When we were there, it was an extremely hot day. We were grateful for a prevailing breeze, and for the areas on either side of the ascending/descending granite slope that offered shade under the trees growing alongside the bank on either side.