Not EVERYTHING can be “WOW!” At least we are now 10ER’S!!!
This is IT???
Generally, after one of our hikes, we have our family photo, taken at the top of the peak, inspirational views in the background. Well, this time, here is our family photo, taken at the peak. And that’s the view. Somehow I feel…cheated? Our youngest even said it, in the car coming back. “That was kind of a let-down. I mean, you do all the work to get to the top. At the very least you should be able to SEE something.”
It wasn’t a total wash. I’ll get to the positives later. For now, here are the stats:
Peaks: Nye (altitude 3895 ft) and Street (altitude 4166 ft). We started the climb at 10:00 am. It was sunny, 67 degrees F and humid. The bugs were almost non-existent (THAT is a positive!). It took us 4 hours, 6 minutes to get to the split (about 4 miles), 7 minutes at the split, 10 minutes to walk to the top of Nye (ho-hum), 43 minutes to get to the top of Street (2/3rds of a mile), 22 minutes at the top (such as it is) of Street (we had to eat SOMEWHERE), 34 minutes back to the split, and 2 hours, 40 minutes from the split back to the bottom (that INCLUDES a nice 20 minute break at the stream crossing–that says a LOT about this climb!!! It has an ugly part that goes UP, UP, UP!!!). Total mileage: 8.8. Total time, 8 hours, 43 minutes.
When we began this little adventure last summer (with a goal to climb all 46 peaks) I wasn’t sure where to go to get information. I had climbed Cascade and wanted more. But I didn’t know peaks to climb and in what order, so I bought James R. Burnside’s book “Exploring the 46 Adirondack High Peaks.” I like the book for lots of reasons: it gives the altitude and mileage of each peak, he’s got some great background information and I enjoy the anecdotes he includes about his climbs. Plus, he’s a 46′er and I give him TOTAL props for that!
However, with due respect to the author, it was written in 1994 and it’s somewhat outdated now, especially with the availability of almost up-to-the-minute climb reports posted on the internet. I still recommend the book to people (for reasons listed above), but we don’t go to Burnside for climb info. It just isn’t helpful. (Plus, I have gotten almost apoplectic about some of his difficulty ratings: Giant is a B+??? Say WHAT? I don’t THINK so!!! It’s harder than THAT!) For instance: he talks about how many folks said “Nye was quite an easy climb. The hurricane of 1950 changed all that. Since then, climbers have described the mountains as ‘a booby trap of hidden blowdown,’ ‘a nightmare obstacle course of deadfall and debris,’ and a ‘truly horrible place.’…As a consequence, most climbers today rate Nye and Street as the most difficult of the 46 high peaks to conquer…One will not find much compensation when reaching their summits, either…The view rating for Nye, however, remains rock solid: it is firmly imbedded at the bottom of the scale.”
He rates this climb as an A+ and says it’s the most difficult of the 46. Oh that it were so!!! I don’t agree. This climb was MUCH easier than Giant. I will say that when Burnside climbed it, the trail was NOT maintained and it “is” now [at least a bit], so he can’t be faulted for that. But, as climbs go, it was not overly demanding for our family (children ages 13, 10 and 8 and two parents in relatively good levels of physical fitness, ages 41). But, like I said, the book was written 14 years ago and a lot can change in that amount of time. However, I WILL agree with the view rating. As far as the peaks go, there WAS NO VIEW on Nye. Period.
One of the FEW views on the way UP.
One thing I will say about the blowdown evidence. It was THERE. And it was fascinating. I’ve seen blowdowns (from the tops of OTHER peaks, where there is a VIEW). I’ve always wondered, “What would it be like to be IN there?” Now I know. And I also have new and FOND appreciation for all those WONDERFUL, AMAZING, SUPER, LOVELY volunteers and employees who maintain the trails of the peaks. THANK YOU. This was our first experience with “bushwhacking.” We were all a little nervous about it, but, as it turns out, all was fine. (I think we got lucky. And I don’t think we can count this as true bushwhacking.)
It's maintained a little.
It wasn’t that big a deal, thanks to the efforts of someone who does do SOME maintenance on the trail. So, we didn’t have the nightmare that Burnside talked about, but it was NOT as good as the other (formally maintained) trails. It was really interesting to see where the trees had been blown down on the mountain, pushed over like toothpicks. In several places, there were massive birches that were mangled and thrown down. And it was also cool to answer the kids’ questions about, “What are those tiny plants?” by telling them that they are pine trees trying to come back. The trees were only about 3 inches high and they covered the forest floor. Later on, we could see the trees at about a 4 foot height. It looked like a Christmas tree farm. That was cool.
So, we started this hike and about 45 minutes into it (approximately 1.5 miles), I was thinking, “Oh, this isn’t going to be hard at ALL.” We had rolling hills through the forest and the path was mostly going DOWN. There was a little bit of mud, but nothing terrible and the trail was good. We were worried about finding the cairns that pointed us to the stream crossing, but we found them easily, no problem.
First crossing cairn.
Crossing the stream was fun. Good thing, since we had to do it several times!
Crossing the stream.
After crossing the stream at the first cairn, there was a path that went straight up, but unlike the other peaks, we weren’t scrambling over giant boulders. We walked up on tree roots. It was almost like walking on stairs.
The root stairs.
Even though it was really steep, I thought, “Not bad, not bad at all.” Then we crossed the stream a second time.
A double log crossing!
After this crossing is when things got REALLY interesting!
The path began to go STRAIGHT UP. It was unbelievable. It took us FOREVER. I wondered how far it was, so I looked at the distance and I’m amazed. It probably wasn’t even a mile. It seemed like we were doing this part for hours. We hiked along and then IN a little stream. It was muddy and did I mention? STRAIGHT UP. Ugh. We had to take little tiny steps and stop often to get our breath. Our littlest one was NOT in a good mood (note to self: sending husband and children to amusement park for 12 hours the day before an ADK hike is a BAD idea). We let our little one be the pace-setter. Of course, then she fell. ~sigh~ But we got through it. Maybe not happily, but hey. It’s a character builder.
Our little one, building character.
As we were hiking, we saw fewer people on this mountain than we have ever seen. We were passed by one family going up–an UBER fit dad with two kids [KIDS!] scrambling behind him–they were probably 12 and 13, a boy and a girl. They did NOT look like they were having fun–dad was practically RUNNING up the mountain and the girl yelled, “D-A-A-A-A-D!” He just barked back at her, “Pick it up!!!” I guess it works for some. I was just happy to see other kids out there. They passed us again, going down, as we were going up. They were MOVING. We also saw a grown son and his father; they passed us going down. Later we saw a very large group (maybe 9 folks) and that was it. We were literally the ONLY people on the top of that mountain (at least that we know of) and with GOOD reason as you’re about to see…
Looking at beaver dams.
The other interesting thing we saw were the beaver dams. There were a LOT of them and they were impressive! We also saw all the trees the beavers had gnawed and moved to make the dams. THAT was cool! Our eldest found a giant tree that the beavers had chewed and asked, “They couldn’t have moved THAT tree! Did they KNOW it was going to fall right there?” I’m not sure if they “know” or not, but I do know beavers are “nature’s engineers.” Sadly, we didn’t see any beavers. That would’ve been cool.
The only wildlife we actually saw were lots of toads. We heard many birds while we were near the bottom of the mountain, not so many up top. And we LOVE finding all the mushrooms. There are so many different kinds! Our favorite are the “puffballs,” the ones when you poke them, release a brown powder (spores?).
We are very grateful to all the internet reports we read. They were very descriptive and helpful. One of them mentioned some old metal equipment after we crossed the stream AGAIN. Sure enough, we found the equipment. The kids were so curious. What was it for? HOW did they get it there? And WHY did they just leave it? I just don’t know…
Rusted equipment on the ground.
We finally made it to the split. My husband told us to, “Look for a tree with an ‘N’ and an ‘S’ carved into it.” I almost laughed! With ALL these trees, how could a person POSSIBLY find a tree with letters carved into it??? However…
Tree with carved letters.
There were also a couple of nice cairns there, but I didn’t get a photo of them. From this point, it was just a short walk to the “top” of Nye. Everybody say, “Ooooooooooh.”
We are NINERS!
Notice the sign in this picture. That’s it. That’s what you get. If you turn and look in the other direction, there’s a smaller sign, one that’s a yellow circle that just says, “Nye.” Whoo-hoo.
An example of blowdown.
I have to mention here that a person doing these particular mountains should be doubly careful watching. Normally, when I hike, I am looking down at my feet so I don’t slip/trip/fall. This hike had a double whammy because there WERE many trees across the path. Three out of five of us (my husband, elder daughter and son) all got nailed in the head by a tree. They can tell you, it is NOT a pleasant experience.
The "view" from the top of Street.
We did get to see some of the ranges from the top of Street, but it wasn’t easy! We really had to work to find them!
We are 10'ERS!
Yee-haw! Double digits, baby!!! It’s always fun trying to take a family picture when there is no one around. We were able to balance the camera on our backpacks for this one!
The sign on top of Street.
Again, you have to look pretty hard for the sign on top of Street. We didn’t know it was there until we were almost ready to go. My husband carries his GPS, so we know we are at the top based on coordinates and altitude. We looked for a sign, but only saw it only as we were leaving!
On the way down.
Coming down was FAST. Once again, we let the little one lead. In her typical fashion, she BOUNCED down the mountain. She was going so fast I was breathing hard, trying to keep up (sadly, dear readers, I think this is only going to get WORSE, as she gets stronger and I get, well…older!). She was MOTIVATED to get down! I have to say, our pace DOWN says what kind of a climb UP it is. It was truly that difficult. Another good thing about this mountain is that unlike the paths on the others, this one is not full of boulders. On the others, you’re scrambling up and then jumping or sliding down. This one was full of roots or mud and both those things are softer and a bit easier on the knees than banging/scraping on boulders. I felt like I was zooming down the mountain and yet, I’m not nearly in as much pain today as I was last week! Our little one had found her legs by this time though and was very happy. She said, “Hey Mom, you remember whiny me?” I said yes. She said, “She’s gone now, but she’ll be back for the next hike!” Ugh!
More blowdown.
You know, maybe these mountains aren’t as dramatic as the other peaks we done. Ok, there’s no “maybe” about it. They aren’t. If I had done these mountains first, I don’t think I would’ve caught peak fever and passed it on to my family. After expending so much energy and seeing so little, I would have questioned climbing the others.
It’s true. You do Street and Nye because you have to in order to be 46′ers.
But you know something? All things being equal, I’d do it again. It was a GORGEOUS day, we had the privilege of being outside and mucking around in a nice forest. And best of all, we got to do it TOGETHER, as a family. There is NOTHING better than that. So, yeah, the view was less than impressive, but the climb was TOTALLY worth it.
Two down only 36 to go!
