Nye Peak

I climbed Nye and Street on 3/12/04. I believed I found the Nye peak as there was a red trial marker with Nye Mt written on it with permanent marker. It is like a closet with nowhere to really go. I believed it to be the peak but I could not find a wooden marker like that on Street. However, when I got home and downloaded the data from my GPS it indicated that I was at the peak closer to the cairn. From all the maps I have looked at they indicate the peak to be further to the north. From the plots I have and my GPS it does appear that the closer peak is higher than the one further north. Have they redesignated the peak or is the marker placed in the wrong location? I took a picture of the marker and I have GPS plots if anyone is interested.

Canyon

Unless that marker was moved from last summer, you found the summit. The closet analogy is a good one. Underneath the snow, there is a sizable area of bare rock. I don't know if that was evident when you were there.

The GPS readings seem to have a higher margin of error up there than you might want to think. I have three slightly different coordinates for all the peaks, depending on the sources that I have managed to find. In addition, my own readings don't exactly coordinate with any of the three.

Canyon,

The summit marked on the trail map is not the summit as observed by the 46ers. The peak with the red trail marker is the summit observed by the 46ers. The summit, as indicated on the map, is about 0.4 miles further to the north then the recognized summit.

John

Watch your NADS!!

Make sure your GPS setting matches your map survey data - NAD27 vs NAD83 can be off by a few tenths of a mile.

Street and Nye were the first peaks I used a GPS on and I could not figure out why the GPS said I was .3 mi away when I was standing under the summit sign. As I read up on my GPS and made sure I was using the right map survey I could reconcile the GPS data to the map.

Thanks for the replies. At least it looks like I was at what is recognized as the summit. A friend of mine that is a 46R said he believed the canister used to be on the point that is further north. He remembers when there were a bunch of trails on the peak due to everyone looking for the canister. He has a fairly low number, around 2000, so it has been quite some time since he made the peak.

I think my GPS (Garmin 76S) is correct in that it has nailed all the other peaks I have climbed. It also had Street right on the mark.

Thanks again. Was just trying to figure out if I needed to make the trip again in case I did not make the real peak. I am going to check this one off my list.

Yes, you definitely found the recognized summit, but you're not the first person to be confused by the summit as shown on the ADK trail map. The base for the ADK map is the 1953 USGS 15' quad, which generally has very good contouring; and whoever did the contouring for that map was confident enough to place the "x" and a spot elevation. Since that elevation is in brown, it is unchecked, meaning no one actually visited that point with an instrument.
The 1978 Ampersand Lake metric sheet has one more ten meter contour line on the recognized summit, and I think (but am not sure) the 46-Rs recognized this summit as higher even before the 1978 maps were out. The only way to tell for sure which summit is higher is to visit each with an instrument. I don't know if a GPS can be relied on to get an elevation within a foot or not. I know that I wouldn't trust an altimeter to be that precise.
To date, we have not altered any of the contouring on the ADK map, but given your question and others reveived recently we will see if we can get the spot elevation and extra countour line removed from that north summit on the next printing.

Thanks for the reply. At least I now know I made it and that I am not the only one to have had this question.

Altimeter more accurate than GPS

Tony;

Standard GPS is not very accurate for elevation, certainly not within feet.

KZ