adktyler
Active member
If you all don’t already know, my Dad and I are working on our winter 46. This weekend to kick off the winter season, we hit up Street and Nye. We both hiked it in October to get a GPS read on the trail, and bag them for our summer 46 as well.
Well, this ended up being one of those trips that reminds me that sometimes I don’t absolutely love winter. I spent Saturday night in Saranac Lake, hanging out with friends and organizing gear. The next morning, I met my dad in the Adirondack Lodge parking lot at 6:45am, and we were off for the trail by 7:15am. It was almost light out by that point, and had been snowing for about 10 minutes or so. A few groups we heading up Marshall, totaling about 10 people or so, but no one had any word about condition on S&N, so we expected to break trail for the entire day.
At the sign-in I hopefully looked for a little pink bunny, but alas, the last log of him was near the end of November. The last person to climb S&N appeared to have done so on the 7th of December, not very helpful. Oh well, we figured it would be a good day of exercise.
The trail, though not broken, was quite obvious. We made good time, and were soon at the Indian Pass Brook. That is when the fun began. The water was pretty high for that time of year, and the ice had not fully developed. We spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to cross about 15 feet of water and ice. After getting our feet a little wet, and cracking lots of ice, we finally made it across and were on our way again.
The trip became quite uneventful from then on. It snowed the entire time, but the trail was still mostly clear and visible, and the breaking only consisted of 4-6 inches. About ½ mile from the Col, however, the snow began to get significantly deeper. Soon we were breaking about a foot of snow, and loosing the trail every now and then (though never for long, since we were using the GPS). Arriving at the Col was a real blessing, and we were already pretty tired and hungry by that point.
After some food, and gear switch, we headed off for “Street.” However, since our GPS skills seem to leave much to be desired, we ended up on the trail to Nye instead. That trail was quite obvious, but the snow was very deep. At points we had waist deep drifts to plow through, which as I’m sure you know, is pretty challenging. At this point we still didn’t know we were hiking up Nye (well, one of us was pretty sure, but restrained himself from arguing out of respect for his elders). Once we reached the summit, I finally blew up and said “DAD! WE JUST HIKED NYE!” His response was, “How do you know that?” And I replied “Well, my first clue was the yellow plastic circle on that tree that says ‘Nye’ on it.”
After a quick picture, we headed back to the Col. I was not too happy about having to still hike the longer, harder mountain. Soon we were trudging our way up Street. It was still snowing, and the rate of accumulation had increased quite a bit. It was also quite windy, and had been that way from the Indian Pass Brook and on. The tail up Street was much harder to follow, and we moved a 15-20 feet to the right and left of it about 20 times or so. Finally, however, we summited. What a great feeling, to do our 24th and 25th winter peak. Thus began the long descent back down.
We arrived back at our car at about 5:45pm, not too bad time for 9 ½ miles of trail breaking. It reminded me how much I love hiking peaks that have been broken, and made me appreciate the kind soles who do the breaking that much more. It also made the 15 mile Blake trip the next day that much more exhausting, haha. Oh well, by the time I was done with the trips I was resigned to deep powder, almost to the point of not worrying about it any more!
I hope you all had success on your trips this last weekend as well. We were all in the deep powder together!
-ADK88 (Tyler)
P.S. I have a few pictures and videos, I'll put them up later.
Well, this ended up being one of those trips that reminds me that sometimes I don’t absolutely love winter. I spent Saturday night in Saranac Lake, hanging out with friends and organizing gear. The next morning, I met my dad in the Adirondack Lodge parking lot at 6:45am, and we were off for the trail by 7:15am. It was almost light out by that point, and had been snowing for about 10 minutes or so. A few groups we heading up Marshall, totaling about 10 people or so, but no one had any word about condition on S&N, so we expected to break trail for the entire day.
At the sign-in I hopefully looked for a little pink bunny, but alas, the last log of him was near the end of November. The last person to climb S&N appeared to have done so on the 7th of December, not very helpful. Oh well, we figured it would be a good day of exercise.
The trail, though not broken, was quite obvious. We made good time, and were soon at the Indian Pass Brook. That is when the fun began. The water was pretty high for that time of year, and the ice had not fully developed. We spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to cross about 15 feet of water and ice. After getting our feet a little wet, and cracking lots of ice, we finally made it across and were on our way again.
The trip became quite uneventful from then on. It snowed the entire time, but the trail was still mostly clear and visible, and the breaking only consisted of 4-6 inches. About ½ mile from the Col, however, the snow began to get significantly deeper. Soon we were breaking about a foot of snow, and loosing the trail every now and then (though never for long, since we were using the GPS). Arriving at the Col was a real blessing, and we were already pretty tired and hungry by that point.
After some food, and gear switch, we headed off for “Street.” However, since our GPS skills seem to leave much to be desired, we ended up on the trail to Nye instead. That trail was quite obvious, but the snow was very deep. At points we had waist deep drifts to plow through, which as I’m sure you know, is pretty challenging. At this point we still didn’t know we were hiking up Nye (well, one of us was pretty sure, but restrained himself from arguing out of respect for his elders). Once we reached the summit, I finally blew up and said “DAD! WE JUST HIKED NYE!” His response was, “How do you know that?” And I replied “Well, my first clue was the yellow plastic circle on that tree that says ‘Nye’ on it.”
After a quick picture, we headed back to the Col. I was not too happy about having to still hike the longer, harder mountain. Soon we were trudging our way up Street. It was still snowing, and the rate of accumulation had increased quite a bit. It was also quite windy, and had been that way from the Indian Pass Brook and on. The tail up Street was much harder to follow, and we moved a 15-20 feet to the right and left of it about 20 times or so. Finally, however, we summited. What a great feeling, to do our 24th and 25th winter peak. Thus began the long descent back down.
We arrived back at our car at about 5:45pm, not too bad time for 9 ½ miles of trail breaking. It reminded me how much I love hiking peaks that have been broken, and made me appreciate the kind soles who do the breaking that much more. It also made the 15 mile Blake trip the next day that much more exhausting, haha. Oh well, by the time I was done with the trips I was resigned to deep powder, almost to the point of not worrying about it any more!
I hope you all had success on your trips this last weekend as well. We were all in the deep powder together!
-ADK88 (Tyler)
P.S. I have a few pictures and videos, I'll put them up later.
