Lower Wolfjaw (for real this time!) 1/13/11

[DSettahr]

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Route Taken: Lake Road from St. Huberts to the East River trail, across Canyon Bridge to the West River trail, south to the Wedge Brook trail, up to the cross over trail and the Range trail to the summit

Snow Depth: About 1 foot in St. Huberts, 2-3 feet on the Wedge Brook trail, 2 feet at the summit

Trail Condition: Lots of fresh snow on the trail, but with very little base; I could feel every rock and root beneath my snowshoes; this was problematic coming down as my snowshoes would snag on hidden obstacles without warning, sending me flying; ice was easier to deal with thanks to the deep snow, but I still had to dig the crampons of my snowshoes in pretty good in a few spots, and slipped a few times on unseen ice coming down

Traction Devices Used: Snowshoes the entire way, MSR Evo Ascents with the tails attached on the way up; I took the tails off for the descent

In my last trip report, I mistakenly wrote “Lower Wolfjaw” in the title, when it was Upper Wolfjaw I'd climbed along with Gothics and Armstrong. I hadn't been able to make it to the fourth peak in the Lower Range, owing to the deep snow on Gothics and the icy ledges on Armstrong that slowed me up considerably. Several days later, I returned to St. Huberts with the goal of finishing what I'd started.

Keene Valley looked like it hadn't gotten nearly as much snow as Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, perhaps only about 8 inches in comparison to the 16 we got at higher elevations. There was nearly a foot total on the ground, however, which would make for some interesting trail breaking. When I arrived at the trailhead, I saw that the Roaring Brook parking area hadn't been plowed yet, and that the Ausable Club parking area was partially plowed, just enough for cars to get in and out of the parking area.

The caretaker, as usual, came out and asked where I was headed when I approached the gatehouse. He told me that I needed to put on my snowshoes before proceeding any further. Not that I hadn't been planning on wearing them, but it sounds like the Adirondack Mountain Reserve has the same snowshoe/ski rule as the Eastern High Peaks. I signed in, noticed that there were several groups headed up to do Dial and Nippletop (one group was also signed in to do Colvin and Blake the same day as well!), and that no one had signed in for Lower Wolfjaw... looked like I was going to be breaking trail. As I was putting on my snowshoes, a group of 3 came up and signed in, also for Dial and Nippletop.

At first I was following a packed out trail, and I moved quickly up the road. Even when the snowshoe path turned and left the road on the trail up towards Dial via Bear's Den, I was still able to follow in the snowed in snowmobile path and make good time. Soon, however, I was at the bridge that would take me across Grill Brook to the East River trail, and forced to leave the snowmobile tracks behind. I was now breaking trail through ankle deep fresh powder, and my forward progress slowed considerably.

When I came to the junction with the East River trail, I turned left and continued upriver. Soon, I left the East River Trail behind and found myself at Canyon Bridge, and paused here to admire the ravine through which the Ausable River flows. Beyond the bridge, the trail climbs high to join the West River Trail on bluffs overlooking the river. Here, the trail mostly stayed in stands of mature Hemlock trees, which was nice because the snow wasn't as deep beneath the trees, and breaking trail was a bit easier.

Along the river I went, uphill and downhill, but mostly steadily uphill, until soon I was walking along wooded ledges high above the river. It's only 0.7 miles from Canyon Bridge to the junction with the Wedge Brook trail, but it was a long 0.7 miles when breaking trail, and soon I was beginning to feel the burn in my legs. As I proceeded, I did catch glimpses through the trees here and there on Noonmark and Bear's Den across the valley. Finally, I saw the small bridge across Wedge Brook ahead of me, and the trail junction just on the other side.

Here, I turned right and began to ascend the Wedge Brook trail. The trail starts out at a good clip uphill, and the fun really got started. With the amount of effort I was exerting to break trail, it seemed like I should have been gaining a fair amount of elevation, but every time I turned around to measure my progress against Noonmark (clearly visible through the woods behind me), I just ended up feeling frustrated at how slow my uphill progress seemed when compared to the summit of this peak. Soon, a little nub on the side of Lower Wolfjaw came into view ahead of me... it didn't look like it was that much higher than I was, but I could never seem to gain any elevation on it. When I reached the state land boundary line, I pulled out my map and checked it- I was about a third of the way from the West River trail to the junction with the Wolfjaw cutoff trail. I was only at about 2500 feet, but already it felt like I'd climbed several high peaks!

The trail was sporadically marked with both ATIS markers (before the stand land line) and DEC markers (after the boundary), but easy to follow for the most part, despite being completely covered in snow with no sign of tracks from previous hikers. Only in one spot did I mistakenly leave the trail, climbing partway up into a drainage that I thought was the path. I quickly realized my mistake, however, and retraced my steps and found the correct path.

Eventually, the slope started to level off as I approached the upper section of the Wedge Brook drainage. It's been nearly 5 years since I last hiked this trail (back in the summer of 2006), and as I approached the level section a memory popped into my head- I seemed to recall that I'd passed a designated campsite somewhere along this trail back then. And sure enough, there it was- a nice, flat, open campsite right alongside the trail, marked with a yellow DEC “Camp Here” disc as well as a “No Fires” disc (it is in the Eastern High Peaks after all!). I don't think this campsite ever gets much use, as it's not shown on any map, but it would make for a nice alternative overnight approach (instead of the John's Brook valley) to some of the peaks on the Lower Great Range.

Beyond the campsite, the trail got steeper, much more so than anything I'd encountered on the lower slopes. The snow got much deeper, too- I think that the upper slopes of this drainage gain extra snow in the winter much in the same way as Tuckerman's Ravine. Winds blow much of the snow from the summit off the top of the mountain, and it collects in the Wedge Brook Drainage. Consequently, the snow here was the deepest I would encounter on the entire hike, deeper even than the summit. In some places, the drifts were 3 feet deep, and breaking trail through them was slow and exhausting work. To further compound my efforts, there was no base, and I could feel every root and rock beneath my feet. Many of these I was unable to see before I stepped on them, and my ankles were twisted awkwardly several times as I tried to maintain balance. Above me, I could see the cliffs on the upper reaches of Lower Wolfjaw, towering impossibly high above me, with my goal hidden somewhere up there in the clouds and blowing snow.

My progress was very slow, and I found myself moving forwards in 50 foot bursts of energy at a time, then stopping to rest. It was only when I finally reached the junction with the cutoff trail that I allowed myself the luxury of thinking that I might actually make it to the summit. I tamped out a little clearing for myself and stopped here for some hot chocolate. It was only 0.6 miles to the summit... my progress so far had been slow, but it was only early afternoon. I reasoned that I ought to be able to summit by 2 pm, and that my descent would be much faster than the hike up and so I had plenty of time to continue on.

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Continued...

 

[DSettahr]

I took the right fork onto cutoff trail to Lower Wolfjaw, as it was the shorter of the two routes. The cutoff trail was not nearly as steep as the upper portion of the Wedge Brook Trail had been, and it had less snow on it. Additionally, I was armed with the psychological advantage of knowing that I wasn't far from the summit. My speed increased, and soon I was at the junction with the Range trail, where I turned right to climb the remaining 0.3 miles to the summit. This last section of trail was by no means easy- in spots the snow was drifted quite deep. Without a base, it was hard to get purchase with my snowshoes in spots, and finding rocks and outcrops beneath the snow to clamber up was difficult. I did encounter some very icy patches, and while these weren't overly difficult to handle, I did have to really dig in with the built in crampons on my snowshoes a few times. Nothing I couldn't handle without crampons, however. The closer to the summit I got, the more determined I grew, and finally I stepped into the small clearing, marked by two signs, one pointing out the trail north along the range, the other indicating the trail south towards Rooster Comb and Keene. It had only taken me 5 hours to reach the summit, averaging 1 mile per hour the entire way up!

There wasn't much to be had for views from the summit on this hike... Down in the valley, the skies had been quite clear and blue, but here I found myself inside the cloud that had been parked on the summit all day. I ate lunch, took some photos, and made preparations for my descent. I'd originally planned to return to St. Huberts via the trail along Deer Brook, but as I had been completely wiped out by breaking trail, I decided instead to return the way I'd come, along a trail that I knew was broken out the entire way. I'd had my tails on my MSR Evo Ascents on the way up, and I removed these for the descent, reasoning that the trail had been broken out and that the tails would probably just get in the way with all the roots and rocks hidden beneath the snow. I also pulled out my ice ax, as on the ascent I'd knocked quite a bit of snow off of some of the icier sections, and figured it would also come in handy as a break while butt sliding one some of the steeper sections.

I hadn't been hiking again for more than 30 seconds when, as if my thoughts had been the words of prophecy, my snowshoe caught on a hidden rock. I went flying, and came down hard on the ground, smashing my knee against a patch of ice. It wasn't injured, but I had hit hard enough that it was in pain for a few minutes, and I limped along until I could put weight on it again. The descent down the upper slopes of the mountain was a combination of carefully picking by way down the icy sections, butt sliding, and attempting to glissade without catching my snowshoes on any more obstacles (with varying success, but no more nasty falls at least). The skies opened up a little bit, and I did get a nice view at one point of the false summit of Upper Wolfjaw to the south.

When I returned to the junction where the cutoff trail leaves the Wedge Brook trail, a surprise was waiting for me... more snowshoe tracks! It looked like a group of two snowshoers had come up behind me, but owing to the lateness of the day, had decided to turn back at the junction. All morning, I kept turning around and hoping to see reinforcements heading up the trail behind me, and even thought I heard voices a couple of times, but chalked it up to hearing things in the wind blowing through the trees. Now that it's all said and done, of course, I'm glad that I was alone the whole way up... now I can cross off “break trail by myself all the way up a high peak” from my to-do list.

As I'd expected, my descent went much more quickly than the climb up had. When I returned to Canyon Bridge, I caught up with the perpetrators of the extra snowshoe tracks- two gentlemen off in the woods, apparently searching for where the East River Trail continued south towards Lower Ausable Lake. When I returned to Lake Road, I'd found that it had been groomed by snowmobiles. In it's present condition, I'd certainly ski on it- there's at least several inches of packed snow on top of the road. I saw plenty of tracks coming out from the trail up Dial via Bear's Den, but didn't see any tracks coming from further up Lake Road (perhaps they'd been obliterated by the snowmobiles. I wonder how well all the groups faired on Dial and Nippletop?

I was back at my car just over 2 hours after leaving the summit. In passing the trail up Noonmark, I noticed that it was not broken out at all. No idea how succesful the solitary hiker I'd seen heading up Giant that morning had been. The Roaring Brook parking area still hadn't been plowed, but the Ausable Club one had when I returned.

Of all the hikes I've done this winter, I think I felt the most worn out at the end of the day after this one. I'd say I definitely earned my keep on this hike! The trail is very well broken out up to the junction with the cutoff trail, and pretty well broken out beyond all the way to the summit thanks to my ascent and descent. Should be easy hiking for anyone who heads up that way this weekend. As for the rest of the trails in the High Peaks, I can imagine that it will take at least the full weekend before most of them are broken out. I bet there will be a few choo-choo trains of hikers on the peaks this weekend, as multiple groups catch up to those in front breaking trail. Hopefully we get some nice weather, warm sun to both bring out the hikers and pack down this snow a little bit!