The Flume is New Hampshire's real-life Rivendell, eight hundred feet of waterfall-carved Conway granite walls looming eighty feet up and less than twenty feet apart, draped with lush green ferns and mosses. A boardwalk threads throughout a landscape that feels more like the Pacific Northwest or Middle-Earth than New England. Formed by underground basalt flows rather than glacial carvings, The Flume is one of New Hampshire's more surreal, beautiful, and cherished natural treasures. It was part of family vacations more than once during my own childhood, and I look forward to sharing it with my own family when we get home. The kids have seen more than their share of natural beauty out here in Washington State, with rain forests and vast rugged beaches and snow-capped peaks, and I worry that they might have been spoiled for New Hampshire's subtler outdoor charms. I hope not.