Street & Nye
5/17/16
Parking: Adk Loj
Group: Emily, Shawn, Murphy
The forecast called for thunderstorms starting Saturday afternoon, so we decided it would be a good morning to visit Street & Nye. We left Albany at 5am, made a quick stop at Stewart’s to get an egg sandwich, and were at the Loj by 7:30am. The parking lot was emptier than usual, but there were still a handful of cars parked.
Fifteen minutes after we pulled in we were on our way around Heart Lake (and starting to wish we had brought bug spray..)
Heart Lake
Ten minutes in to the hike, we reached the trail register and saw that one other group of two had already signed in.
As we hopped along the rocks, we both commented that it had been an easier time to navigate the path when it was covered in snow (we attempted to winter hike these in February, but we went during an abnormally warm week and so much of the snow had melted that Indian Pass had been too high and impossible to cross).
Stay LEFT when you see the sign for Mount Jo, and then stay RIGHT on the Old Nye Ski Trail.
This part of the trail is pretty flat and will bring you to the gorgeous Indian Pass. There are a few low places that you can cross, but we chose to stick with the cairns.
Some of these such cairns ^^
We had to take off our boots and ended up carrying Murphy for part of it (the water was moving pretty fast, and there wasn’t always a safe place for him to put his paws). Note to self – bring a towel to wipe off out feet next time.
After we put our boots back on (and Shawn stopped being cranky – he reallyyyy hates when his feet get wet/dirty/cold), we crossed a pretty muddy swampy part and headed up the hill to begin our ascent. It was a pretty steep climb after this, and we were sweatin in no time.
Magic tree?
Some parts of the trail were hard to find, but when in doubt follow the creek (or, in our case, the dog).
By 9:45am we finally got to our first (and only) lookout of the hike, and 25 minutes later we were at the junction, which kindly (but against LNT policy) tells you which path is which.
The sun was still out, so we decided to do Street first because we had read that there was at least a little bit of a view from it’s summit (but really, there isn’t).
Time at the top of Street: 10:45am. We stayed for maybeee seven minutes and headed back down, where we crossed paths with the group that had signed in before us. They had just come from Nye, and reported that it was only a short trip from the junction and the views were nilch.
And boy, were they right. Eight minutes after leaving the junction for Nye we had reached the summit. Which didn’t really look like a summit, just a bare area in the middle of the woods.
Our trip back down from the junction took about the same amount of time as it did going up. We passed two more groups of two and chatted with them briefly. The one group commented on how difficult it was to find the path in some parts, but that they knew they must be going the right way when they saw the paw prints (we always sign in 2 + dog in the trail register. He counts too!!)
Hiker Pup in action
We signed out at 2pm and Murph and I enjoyed splashing around in Heart Lake for a few minutes (Shawn stayed on shore because you know – wet & cold feet, etc). Then we took advantage of our earlier than usual arrival time at the Loj and explored the campground for a half hour. We never realized how many campsites there are!
Heart Lake from the Adk Loj
- 2.5 hours from trail register to the junction
- 30 minutes to summit of Street & 30 minutes back to junction
- Eight minutes to summit of Nye & seven back
- Hour and half from junction to Indian Pass
- 45 minutes from Pass to register
Miles: 9.1
We always seem to mentally discount the shorter peaks and think they’ll be easy days, but you still earn two peaks and your dinner on this one. All in all, Street and Nye is a short but difficult day 🙂
Post-hike snooze 🙂
Happy trails!