Lower & Upper Wolf Jaws, January 21, 2010

[BlackSpruce]

Nice broken trail with 3 inches of new snow all the way to the summit of Lower Wolf Jaw made it an almost easy climb for Alex and a friend while Gary and I went the other way. Seems the last 10 days that climbers completely abandoned Upper Wolf Jaw, likely upon reading numerous trip reports of death defying ice-covered ledges! From about 20 yards past the Notch and all the way to the summit it looked like virgin territory. Finally, already well into winter we could relax and have a blast breaking trail in deep beautiful snow! In places thick ice is not very far but there is above 3500’ enough snow to safely butt slide. It took us 90 minutes to reach the summit and 25 to get back down to the Notch and the temperature was dropping just as much.
Of course Alex had the last laugh as he caught up with us shortly before Upper Wolf Jaws summit ledge...

Today, the Southside Trail is well broken and the crossing of Johns Brook not an issue.