It was Memorial Day Weekend and we decided to go camping at Russell Pond, one of our favorite National Forest Campgrounds. As in years past we took Friday off to assure that we got their early enough to get a site. It's worked every time in the past but not this year. We got there around 10:30am to find that they were full! Hoping that we could get in somewhere else we headed across Tripoli Road toward Waterville Valley. We had not stayed at the Waterville Valley Campground before because it had a reputation of being a pretty wild party spot. Certainly not our type of camping experience. Well, as it turns out we saw some empty sites and took one figuring it couldn't be that bad for one weekend. As it turns out there are new hosts there and they have worked very hard to overcome that party reputation and it was the most quiet weekend camping we have ever had!

      As I was tring to figure out some nice easy hike we could do I discovered that you could walk to Fletcher's Cascades right from our campsite. That made the decision and we headed out. If you're doing the cascades from the trail head rather than the campground you can take nearly a mile off of the distance of our hike. Certainly a short hike but none the less a very nice one especially early in the year when the cascades are running a bit higher than they will be in summer or fall.

      Once camp was set up it didn't take me long at all to take some pictures with my new digital camera. I got several shots of some trillium that was flowering in the back of the campsite and a shot of Louise enjoying the chance to read.

      After we crossed Route 49 and passed the trail head we were on our way. The trail is very pleasant and it felt good to be in the woods with no snow and no bugs yet either! As we made out way up the trail we caught a great view of Noon Peak off through the trees. Then before we knew it we came to the first view of the cascades. As the trail begins to steepen we got more peeks at the cascades. The trail stays close enough to the cascades to give you pretty constant views of the cascades through the trees.

      The weather was perfect and it was still early enough in the year that we were not plagued by bugs, so we were having a wonderful time! I continued to try new things with the camera so I took some close ups of the falls and just some nice shots of the water spashing over the rocks.

      Even though the cascades are nothing spectacular we were enjoying every minute of the hike. Each time we thought we must be nearing the end of them we would catch another glimpse of them up through the trees. In many areas the forest is so lush and green that it almost takes on a tropical feel. Ahhhh yes, it was that wonderful time of year when everything is flowering from the hobble bush to the trillium.

      As we neared what we once again thought had to be the end of the cascades we could see Mount Osceola off in the distance. It's amazing to us how even on short hikes with very little real climbing just how many times you can catch views that are as good as or even better than those you get when doing a four thousand footer. It was beginning to feel more and more like we were not even on a trail any more but we wanted to keep going to make sure that we didn't miss any of the cascades. The last picture I took before deciding to end the bush whacking and turn around was or a very interesting tree.

      Once we started down I was surprised to realize just how much climbing we had done. even though we had been here just an hour or so ago I had to get one or two more shots of the water as it splashed over the rocks.