It was a cold morning. At least cold for people who are not used to cold yet. Some snow on the ground starting right from the parking lot. The hike started out easy with a nice wide trail going around Heart lake. About a half mile in the heard path started going toward Street and Nye. Pretty quickly the trail got muddy and rough. About a mile in we came to a stream. The water was high and we spent about a half hour walking up the stream and down the stream looking for a place to cross. There weren't any. OK, the air is 20 and the water is 30. Ice on top of the rocks. Time to take off the boots and walk barefoot through the stream. It took another 15 minutes or so for us to realize what had to be done and then to actually do it. Once you got in the water it wasn't bad since your feet went numb almost immediately. Got to the other side and put the boots back on and started hiking. Fortunately the trail started going up hill so we warmed up and could feel our feet within 15 minutes or so.
The trail was muddy and rough and stayed that way all the way up to the ridge. You had to pay attention to stay out of deep puddles that threatened to soak your semi-dry boots. From the ridge it was a pretty easy hike one way to Street and the other to Nye. Street had some decent views of Algonquin and Iroquois and Wright where we were a few weeks ago. Nye was treed at the top although you could see toward the great range a little bit through the trees. On the way back down we noticed that there were some pretty good views of the Great Range and the Algonquin range.
And again we arrive back at the stream. There is actually two stream crossings. The first one on the way back involves "riding" a log. A tree had fallen across the first stream which you could not walk across due to snow and ice on the log. You could ride it like a horse and pull your way across with your hands. Maybe that isn't how horses work? We had done this on the way out so we did it again on the way back. And then onto the stream where we took our boots off on the way out. Ken did the same on the way back. This time without spending time thinking about it. Sue, Carolyn, and Bruce got clever and put plastic bags on and tried to get across with their boots on. There were only one set of bags so the bags where placed in a small bag along with a rock or two and thrown back over the stream for the next person. Mixed results were reported. Some semi-dry boots and some wet ones. After the stream crossing it was an easy mile back to the car. The "easy" hike took about 7 hours. On the way up to the ridge, including the stream crossing, we were only going 1 mph. Between the stream crossing and the trail which found every other mud hole and small stream going up to the ridge it was very slow going.
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