Hiking NY: Climbing Mts Street and Nye

The weekend before last I headed out to the mountains for my last climb of the season! I met my hiking buddy Ken there at the Adirondack Loj at Heart Lake Wilderness Campground where I had made a campsite reservation x2 nights. The trailhead we needed was right off the campsite area so it worked out perfectly!

This was my first time staying there and it was a beautiful area. Heart Lake is right there by the campgrounds with a nice dock and chairs to relax by the view. And what a view! The leaves were just starting to change for the autumn, so we enjoyed glimpses of oranges and reds within the green.

You can have up to 3 tents per site, so we had plenty of room for each of ours by the fire pit. Thankfully when we arrived on Saturday afternoon the weather was amazing so we had no issues setting up and enjoying a relaxing evening by the firepit with some smores and a light dinner.

However there was definitely rain in the forecast for that night and the next day, so we set up my tarp above the table to *try* to keep some of our area dry so we could still make meals.

We tucked in early, and our alarms went off at 5am so we could hit the trail by 6am! Our bags were ready to go and after strapping on our headlamps we easily made our way to the trailhead. After only about 30-45min the sun lit up the forest enough to where we could turn off our lights and continue on.

The first couple of  miles went pretty quickly and when we got to the first water crossing we were able to easily rock hop across it with no issues.

At the second water crossing there was a large tree fallen so we balanced across it to the other side and continued on our way!

Once the ascent started Ken needed to take it slow on the rocky trails so we took our time. We had a rest at the junction where the trail splits between Street and Nye, then decided to do Street first as it was a further distance. The rain was forecasted to start around noon so we were trying to beat it!

We summited Street first around 10:30am and after a brief rest we turned around and headed back to the junction.

Our view from Street! Not much haha

After the junction it was only about 30min to summit Nye and then get back down. We were still ahead of the rain at this point so we were happy!

We stopped again at the junction on the way down for our lunch and a quick rest, then began our journey back to camp. We were trying to get as far as we could before the rain started, but the rocky trail slowed us down. Right on schedule the rain started gently around noon so we stopped to put on our ponchos. Thankfully we did because right after that the rain got stronger and it poured almost the rest of the way down!

We didn't know how much the water levels would rise on the two water crossings we had to make, so once the rocky trail smoothed out a bit we kicked it into high gear and tromped through the mud and water on a mission. At this point our feet were already soaked so there was no point in trying to avoid them! When we did get to the water crossings we just walked right through the streams to clean off our shoes haha!

We made good time coming back and conveniently the rain stopped just before we got back to camp around 2pm. We rested for a bit then decided to have dinner early while the weather cooperated. Ken cooked us up a feast of bacon cheeseburgers for dinner, then we built another fire (yay for dry wood!) and enjoyed some smores and hot cocoa while we warmed up.

By 6pm we were exhausted so we showered and got dry FINALLY and bid each other goodnight then tucked into our tents to rest. Perfect timing because the next round of rain started around 7pm and it stormed off and on the rest of the night!

The next morning we got up around 6am and Ken fixed us bacon and eggs. Although the rain had stopped, everything was now wet and muddy so we packed up the best we could and were on the road heading home by 7:30am!

I made an obligatory stop at Stewarts for gas, coffee, and these delicious treats to bring home to my boys!

All in all it was a great trip despite the rain, and I would say Street and Nye were some of the "easier" high peaks I've done. The trail was enjoyable, and camping overnight at Heart Lake was the perfect arrangement. Our trip was timed just right, because just a few days later the Adirondacks started getting snow and ice on the summits!!

These two high peaks put me now at #26 out of #46 on my slow journey to be a 46er. I'm looking forward to getting back out there next summer for more challenges!