The morning dawned hot and sunny, hard on the evening's rain, a deluge that lasted the night, cooling down the atmosphere. We drove the Kancamagus Highway past Lincoln under gathering clouds impaling themselves on the mountain tops.

Stopping at the Pemigewasset Overlook we left the truck to approach closer to the spectacular view of the valley below where a wreck of a forest blowdown caught our attention, along with the incomparable beauty of the mountains beyond, trailing white vapour rising over the mountains, cloud-draped along the summits.

It took less than ten seconds in total to realize the all-encompassing horror of being enveloped in a flitting dark, rapacious fog of blackflies, a bloodthirsty horde descending on us from every direction, our arms acting as though of their own volition, futilely, like windmills gone berserk.

All the while feeling those wretched marauders infiltrating each millimetre space and minute faction of an opening to gain entry into our clothing, piercing our shrinking skin with their tiny, formidable mandibles. Leaping away in a panic of escape, we managed to take a few photographs nonetheless, and drove on, still feverishly attempting to extricate the minuscule warriors from ears, neck, scalp and under our shirts, our skin calling out for rescue from the red-hot, searing itch the devils leave behind within the gap of raw flesh they accomplish.

Out came the insect repellent when we reached Sabbaday Falls, where cold running water presents as more prime breeding ground. This year appears to have given perfect season to breeding ferocious blackflies; they're ubiquitous wherever we go, but nowhere else were they as markedly present and avaricious as at the Overlook.

We entered the forested trail alongside the babbling Sabbaday brook, mood restored to happy mode. Taken, as always by the trail's welcoming beauty. Yellow birch is king there, alongside pine and hemlock, dogwood, maple seedlings and Moose maple understory with ferns and blueberry bushes abundant on the forest floor. The pounding fury of the falls, the green pool below, swirling mesmerizingly, the waters' rushing downstream trajectory, the granite walls enclosing the falls, the bridging network creating an access scaffolding for visitors are all mind-bogglingly fascinating.

(Though we do recall a time many years previously, when the scaffolding stairway network had not yet been built, and we were just as enthralled by the spectacle of the falls then, as we were on latter occasions.)

The tumult of the falling, foaming, rushing water, its brilliant splashing plumes and flash, even under dense cloud cover remind of the power and fascination of water, endlessly over time etching bowls into permeable granite with its eddying ferocity.