The Flume

Cindy and I did lots of things besides get lost on the Appalachian trail! We decided to go the Flume which is located in Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire. The trees were so glorious that we pretty much ran out of adjectives. Cindy was getting tired of me saying,"Look at that tree!" Towards the end of our trip I would just point.
So here is some of the beautiful scenery we enjoyed on our way to the Flume.

I particularly enjoyed the sugar maples. They would have every color, very vibrant, on a single tree. Orange, yellow, green and red.

Isn't this just stunning? I had to just stop the car and back up so I could jump out and get this photo.

So the Flume is a natural notch that formed through the rock eons ago. There is a river/creek (definately a river by Arizona standards) that flows through it.

It 's a good 2 mile hike, uphill, the whole way. We aren't quite sure how you can do a loop and it be uphill the whole time, but trust us, it was.
At the bottom it looks sort of like Slide Rock in Sedona. We met someone later who had worked there. He talked about how hard it was to keep people out of the river.

Then it gets into the actual "notch". Here is Cindy at the beginning. Besides the river, there are waterfalls and ferns everywhere. They have this nifty boardwalk that you take that brings you up right through the notch.

Here is a photo of one of the many waterfalls.

It's hard to get a bad photo in the area.

Cindy at a waterfall!

Here we are at the "top". But then we loop off on the Ridge trail, that still seems to be uphill all the way back to the visitor's center.

There are a couple of covered bridges in the park. This is the smaller one for pedestrians only.

And shortly before the end, there is the great view of Mt. Washington. It is the highest peak in New England and is known for record breaking wind speed and cold at the peak. It you look closely the rocky top looks like a profile of George Washington looking at the sky.

And just as we were pulling out of the parking lot, we got this great rainbow right over Mt. Washington!