Wednesday, May 21: Chamberlain/Reynolds; Belknap Woods

The fearless rangers 3 (see me wearing the Squam Ranger's "back bag")decided to take advantage of the second day of gorgeous spring sunshine to explore more trails. We had walked 4.5 miles yesterday, but on the "check off your trails list", we only accumulated credit for 3 miles. Today, even though the walk was much easier - mostly level shorefront forest (Chamberlain/Reynold Forest and the Belknap Woods), we managed to accumulate 6 miles! We were glad to do the walk in late May to see the leaves just bursting, the lake calm and clear, and so many tiny wildflowers. Chamberlain/Reynolds had the reward of the beaches with the white sand showing ripples below the surface, and the fun board walk across the swamp and a place to linger for those less designation oriented than us. Still feeling energetic at the end of Chamberlain/Reynolds, we headed down 25B to Belknap Woods. At the beginning of the walk, the sound of the cars was distracting, but then we fell in love with the wilder feel of this area. It too had a smaller version of the walk across swamp water, but the boards sprang underfoot (see Hunter enjoying the unsteadiness), and the trail maps at the start and at intervals in the woods were so faded they were useless. But the fearless rangers managed to find the sometimes faded and/or far apart yellow paint indicators which did bring us back to the gorgeous clear stream that ran alongside the start of the trail

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