Following the long drive of the day before, and all the settling-in activities at the cottage in New Hampshire on our Waterville Valley trip and week away from home, an early bedtime seemed appropriate for all of us. Jackie, in no uncertain terms, informed us he'd had enough excitement for one day and was fully prepared to go to bed, but refused to until we all turned in. So at ten on Tuesday we all popped into bed and it wasn't long before we were all soundly asleep.

Trouble was, they were up soon after the crack of dawn. So we took them out for a brief ramble-about the property. Wildflowers proliferated there too, including daisies and lupins raising their bright heads to the morning sun just rising above the mountains in the distance, and burning off a bit of fog. Wednesday turned out a sunny day, and warm enough at 25C, to be quite comfortable for a nice woodland hike.

That was our plan, in any event, irrespective of the weather, and that it turned out to be a lovely day was an unexpected bonus, defying the weather report warning of pop-up showers and the potential for thunderstorms. Oh, they both appeared eventually, but not while we were out in the woods on the forest trails long familiar to us.

Not long after entering the trailhead for Smarts Brook, we could hear the mountain stream gushing noisily over rocks and boulders that line the sides and bottom of the stream runway. The streambed itself becomes a ravine with striated rocky cliffs rising steadily on either side of the rushing waters. The forest understory is packed with dogwood, moose maple and sumac, the forest itself comprised primarily of yellow birch, hemlock and pine with oak and maple interspersed.

We often see Yellow Admirals in this woods and last Wednesday was no exception, they were in evidence flitting about, their large beautiful yellow wings coasting on a breeze. At one point we saw a group of the lovely creatures congregated close to the trail, interested in something we were unable to make out, before they began dispersing as we approached.

It's a steady climb on the trail, with ample opportunity to veer off from time to time to take in the roaring stream at close range, as the waters leaped in great spurts over the rocks and eddied in its way downstream in beautiful cascades swirling and racing along and around the rocks on its journey down from the Sandwich Mountain above to reach the Mad River.

We climbed the fairly stiff gradient until we reached Pine Flats, a short trail that is, as the name implies, flat. We were looking for the presence of Ladies Slippers, the lovely wild orchids that we've seen on so many occasions there, but we saw only straw lilies this time around. Eventually, on our way back down, we did see one sole pink orchid, and wondered where all its floral companions had gone off to.

Usually, we continue on from the Pine Flats to an adjoining trail that hugs the forest intimately, the Yellow Jacket trail. It's a much longer trail, and takes considerably longer to pass through, about twenty miles in length. It's been taking us at least three-and-a-half hours to traverse in these later years as a circuit which exits just about twenty yards or so from where we entered. We thought we'd leave the circuit for another day when we would feel a little more energetic.