It is the beauty and the scope of the landscape that beckons us back time and again to Smartsbrook as a destination achievable for us where we are assured of an environment that soothes the senses and awakens one's awareness at one and the same time. It is a mountain-valley trail we have long been familiar with and never tire of hiking.

We know that locally it is a popular trail, but everything is relative, it seems, for we seldom come across others on that trail, exploring its diversity and basking in its quiet beauty. The silence is broken on occasion by the song of a thrush, and certainly when approaching any of the cascades and waterfalls, modest in size, but prominent in sound due to the downstream rush of the mountain stream.

We take immense pleasure in re-acquainting ourselves with it from time to time. And consider ourselves fortunate to be able to do so. It is at once familiar and despite that a place of visual exploration.

We delight in coming across seasonal vegetation emblematic of the White Mountain terrain, from those wonderful Ladies Slippers orchids to common violets growing in abundance in its moist, forest atmosphere amid drifts of ground dogwood (bunchberry).

The understory of the forest is rife with dogwood shrubs whose bloom time appears to be two weeks the other side of what we experience in the forested area we visit daily where we live. Where at home we see striped maple, there in the White Mountain National Forest we see Moose maple and a type of sumac different from what we're more familiar with.

As at home, maple and oak trees grow abundantly, among them the more common sight of yellow birch and hemlock, pines and spruce.

It is an atmosphere and a landscape of surpassing beauty. No one who loves nature could ever be anything but impressed.