Many years ago when we first began taking our-then teen-age children to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for an annual mountain-climbing holiday, there were no fees to access that huge federally-administered geological site of great beauty and renown. An immense tract of mountains, valleys, forests, lakes and rivers. We were free, as far as we knew back then, to venture on any of the mountain trails through the Crawford and the Franconia Notches and less frequently the Pinkham Notch, and we indulged ourselves happily.

Much later, there was a modest fee imposed for a one-week permit to enter the National Forest and on our arrival we would make a trip to the closest national forest office and procure a permit that cost us $5; free to U.S. citizens of our vintage, but as Canadian visitors a fee imposed upon us, and an inconsequential one we gladly paid for the privilege of accessing mountain trails.

For the past several years the weekly fee has been abolished and in its place an equally modest $30 fee good for an entire year, which nicely covered our spring and fall trips to the Waterville Valley area. For the past several years one of our favourite waterfall sites, Sabbaday Falls, has been closed to remediation work. When we first visited the site decades ago there was no access infrastructure, later built as a series of platforms and stairways, and it was this infrastructure that was being repaired.

On this trip in September finally the site was open, unlike June when it was still closed. So we were able to indulge ourselves in the appreciation of a powerful and magnificent landscape, one that offers a trail that we took ages ago and had no interest in repeating, knowing that just down the Kancamagus Highway was another spectacular geological site combining forest, mountains and lake complete with a pleasant mountain trail that we looked forward to accessing with Jackie and Jillie.