“Always plan for the fact that no plan ever goes according to plan”
Simon Sinek
Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve wrote about a High Peak in here. To be honest, this was a very easy day but my legs felt it. We were planning on tagging Blake Mountain at the AMR once and for all, but it didn’t go as planned. So…my brother and I headed for the Adirondack Loj. Praying we could find parking, we were one of MANY cars that particular Sunday morning. Once we found a parking space, we quickly put on our gear and hit the dirt trail.
Narrow Trails and Climbing Streams
That’s the only way how I could possibly describe our climb for most of the trek. Through the first mile we heard Loon calls as we went by Heart Lake and kept pushing towards Indian Pass. We had to do some rock hopping to get past this section which is a water crossing before the trail begins to ascend. About a week after this venture, a water crossing became my enemy in a matter of seconds. Yes, I will speak about my hiking failure in a different blog post. I’m grateful it happened due to the lessons learned from it. Back to the trek though! For most of the hike, we climbed adjacent to a stream that ran very high in altitude but the bugs later made it quite agitating. Relief came when we reached the split between Street & Nye Mountain.
Street Mountain
If you take the left side of the split, you’ll start heading towards Street Mountain. The forest was covered in deep green which was a beautiful scene. This is the most mileage out of the two mountains to reach the summit. Nye Mountain is relatively close from the split. From what I can recall, it wasn’t too steep and the forest was incredible which you can see from a photo provided below. Near the summit, you can make your way down to a small lookout. From this lookout, you can see the entire MacIntyre Range. This was the first time I saw Algonquin without snow on it. It definitely has an impressive rocky summit but I prefer climbing it in the winter. Anyways, let’s get into Nye mountain next up!
Nye Mountain
Stated from earlier, this summit is relatively close from the split between the two mountains. Although this is another wooded summit, there’s a lookout that’s offered on the trail. Right before reaching Nye, there’s a rock you can stand on where you get more views of the MacIntyre Range. In my opinion, Street Mountain is much better than Nye. My brother and I didn’t stay at the summit very long because there was a horrid smell up there. It was most likely from a person, but either way…we left very quick. After all of this, we started to make our descent which I’ll write on and an overview of the hike as well.
Descent & Overview
Heading down the mountain(s), we were right along the side of the stream again. Once we reached Indian Pass, it was much easier to cross over than it was during the ascent. This was probably one of the quickest High Peak hikes that I’ve been on so far. Although it was an unmarked trail, it was incredibly easy to follow. I wouldn’t say that it’s a trek you should introduce friends to hiking on, due to the fact that there’s not many views. This is a tough topic to write on since the only High Peaks acceptable to introduce others onto is Cascade and Giant. Unless, you’d like to see a friends emotions heading to Mount Haystack. Anyways, let’s get to the stats on this trek!
Hiking Stats
- 12.6 Miles
- PB & J (Best hiking sandwich ever)
- Canon Rebel T6
- Garmin InReach
- LifeStraw
- 3L of water
- 6 hours RT
- Quick hike
- Relatively steep
My appreciation!
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this blog. I hope you took something from it and I look forward to writing more. If there’s anything specific you’d like me to cover on hikes or photography, feel free to reach out. I will see you on the next adventure!
– Alex
T & H 