Neil
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- Apr 26, 2004
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Another bushwhack today, Street from Lost Pond Peak. It was LPP that was the toughest, taking 3 hours from the trail around cliffs, lots of blowdown and soaking wet thick spruce and fir trees. No complaints though.
At the border I was told to pull over to an inspection station and I said to the guy in the booth, “Look Smokey, I’m a 46er and have better things to do than bend over for Uncle Sam’s rubber glove”. He gave me a look and said, “Either you’re crazy or have brass ones so I’m going to let you go through”.
“You just made the right decision sir. Otherwise I would have had to order this entire facility vaporized by my friend from Zircon” I said, pointing to the empty passenger seat.
“Well, I guess your crazy then. Have a good hike!”
I strolled along the Indian Pass Trail and after nearly an hour caught glimpses of the col between LPP and Street. I quickly took a compass bead on it and decided I needed to walk for another 10 minutes before cutting down to the brook. Within minutes I was soaked. The GD rain from the night before was going to sprinkle me for hours. When I made the brook I had no views of anything. I had planned on getting a solid fix on my position but now that was out. (No GPS on this trip because real bushwhackers eschew them.) Anyway, all I had to do was point myself west and climb. And did I ever climb! Loads of cliffs ring the base of LPP at its northernmost end. In fact the lower portion of the mountain has cliffs everywhere I’ve climbed it (3 times now). I had excellent views of the Macintyre Range as I climbed and used Iroquois, the ADK trail map and a compass to position myself on my map. I also made use of the Algonquin-Wright col as an improvised and very affordable altimeter. I had occasional views across the drainage to Street and that helped keep me on track as well. However, the closer I was to the drainage, the thicker the vegetation was.
I had gone up this way (more or less) with Sylvie and Annick a few years ago but there was 5 feet of crusty snow under us. In mid-summer it was a totally more difficult experience. I did a lot of twisting and turning to find the best lines and by keeping forward momentum happening I made it to the top in 3 hours from the trail. The viewpoint just off the summit is one of my top one hundred favorite places to be in the Adirondacks. Maybe in the top 5 even.
I spent more time dickering with the map and compass than I did enjoying the scenery actually and finally decided that I would aim magnetic north towards the LPP-Street col. I was full of worry as I headed off because I have heard so many bad things about this traverse. The drop to the col was a charm but that was expected on a north slope. It is important to pay attention when dropping to a col because it’s surprisingly easy to miss it and drop way off below and have to climb back out again. In my case this was not an issue for the simple reason that I nailed the sucker almost dead on.
After that it was magnetic 45 degrees up to a small sub-summit SW of Street. I encountered multiple fir waves along the way and found that there was easy walking just shy of the leading edge, under the leaning trees. I was fascinated by these fir waves, which only exist in the NE USA and in Japan. I spent some time studying the advancing wave and noted the most recent leaning trees, still with some green and how the new growth below became taller as the distance from the leading edge increased. The next trees to go look healthy but they are already weakened by the exposure to winter winds and their root systems have been damaged due to the swinging of the exposed trunks. It would be a great masters or doctoral project to chart the progress of a dozen or so fir waves over a length of time. I’m past that now unfortunately but maybe I’ll become a civilian fir wave inspector for the DEC.
As I proceeded from col to summit I was always able to avoid thick travelling by contouring to the left. However, I came back out to the exposed ridge whenever I could because the views of LPP, McNaughton and the entire Mac Range were unbeatable thanks to my friends the fir waves. I came out directly at Street’s viewing area and noticed that in summer the views are not much to write home about compared to what I had been enjoying for the past couple of hours.
After that it was all downhill back to Indian Pass Brook and then a bit of a slog back to the Loj.
Street was number 36.
No pictures. Too bad because it was a perfect day with no haze and the potential shots were awesome.
At the border I was told to pull over to an inspection station and I said to the guy in the booth, “Look Smokey, I’m a 46er and have better things to do than bend over for Uncle Sam’s rubber glove”. He gave me a look and said, “Either you’re crazy or have brass ones so I’m going to let you go through”.
“You just made the right decision sir. Otherwise I would have had to order this entire facility vaporized by my friend from Zircon” I said, pointing to the empty passenger seat.
“Well, I guess your crazy then. Have a good hike!”
I strolled along the Indian Pass Trail and after nearly an hour caught glimpses of the col between LPP and Street. I quickly took a compass bead on it and decided I needed to walk for another 10 minutes before cutting down to the brook. Within minutes I was soaked. The GD rain from the night before was going to sprinkle me for hours. When I made the brook I had no views of anything. I had planned on getting a solid fix on my position but now that was out. (No GPS on this trip because real bushwhackers eschew them.) Anyway, all I had to do was point myself west and climb. And did I ever climb! Loads of cliffs ring the base of LPP at its northernmost end. In fact the lower portion of the mountain has cliffs everywhere I’ve climbed it (3 times now). I had excellent views of the Macintyre Range as I climbed and used Iroquois, the ADK trail map and a compass to position myself on my map. I also made use of the Algonquin-Wright col as an improvised and very affordable altimeter. I had occasional views across the drainage to Street and that helped keep me on track as well. However, the closer I was to the drainage, the thicker the vegetation was.
I had gone up this way (more or less) with Sylvie and Annick a few years ago but there was 5 feet of crusty snow under us. In mid-summer it was a totally more difficult experience. I did a lot of twisting and turning to find the best lines and by keeping forward momentum happening I made it to the top in 3 hours from the trail. The viewpoint just off the summit is one of my top one hundred favorite places to be in the Adirondacks. Maybe in the top 5 even.
I spent more time dickering with the map and compass than I did enjoying the scenery actually and finally decided that I would aim magnetic north towards the LPP-Street col. I was full of worry as I headed off because I have heard so many bad things about this traverse. The drop to the col was a charm but that was expected on a north slope. It is important to pay attention when dropping to a col because it’s surprisingly easy to miss it and drop way off below and have to climb back out again. In my case this was not an issue for the simple reason that I nailed the sucker almost dead on.
After that it was magnetic 45 degrees up to a small sub-summit SW of Street. I encountered multiple fir waves along the way and found that there was easy walking just shy of the leading edge, under the leaning trees. I was fascinated by these fir waves, which only exist in the NE USA and in Japan. I spent some time studying the advancing wave and noted the most recent leaning trees, still with some green and how the new growth below became taller as the distance from the leading edge increased. The next trees to go look healthy but they are already weakened by the exposure to winter winds and their root systems have been damaged due to the swinging of the exposed trunks. It would be a great masters or doctoral project to chart the progress of a dozen or so fir waves over a length of time. I’m past that now unfortunately but maybe I’ll become a civilian fir wave inspector for the DEC.
As I proceeded from col to summit I was always able to avoid thick travelling by contouring to the left. However, I came back out to the exposed ridge whenever I could because the views of LPP, McNaughton and the entire Mac Range were unbeatable thanks to my friends the fir waves. I came out directly at Street’s viewing area and noticed that in summer the views are not much to write home about compared to what I had been enjoying for the past couple of hours.
After that it was all downhill back to Indian Pass Brook and then a bit of a slog back to the Loj.
Street was number 36.
No pictures. Too bad because it was a perfect day with no haze and the potential shots were awesome.
