DSettahr
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2005
- Messages
- 981
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Decided to spend the afternoon filling in some trails on my red line map. I'd never climbed Lower Wolf Jaw from Keene before, so this was my planned destination.
Ran into Forest Ranger vanLaer at the trailhead, chatted with him for a couple of minutes- he seems pretty nice.
Snow was about half an inch deep in Keene, 3 or 4 inches deep at 3300 feet on the summit of Hedgehog, and 8 inches on the summit of Lower Wolf Jaw- definitely time to start carrying snowshoes on high peaks! Wore microspikes the whole day, but carried snowshoes on my back just in case. Some ice flows here and there, but nothing I felt uncomfortable handling with just microspikes.
Though about climbing Roostercomb, but ended up not- I was eager to get to the summit of Lower Wolf Jaw and back as far as I could before it got dark.
Lots of ups and downs on this route- I can see why it's the least popular approach to the Great Range. Very little in the way of views, too, until you hit the Wolf's Chin, and then you get some nice ones. Not great by High Peaks standards, but the views from the Chin are definitely better than the ones from the true summit of Lower Wolf Jaw. I got some nice views of Noonmark and Round, as well as the newish slide on the Johns Brook side of Lower Wolf Jaw.
It looked like someone had camped out recently on the Wolf's Chin, perhaps even the night before. There was a stamped out area roughly the size of a tent in the middle of the trail, and lots of yellow snow nearby, as well as discarded remnants of dinner.
The whole section of trail between the Chin and the summit is pretty neat- the ridgeline gets real narrow in here, and drops off pretty steeply on either side.
Got some great views of the clouds from the summit. I've never seen weather like this in the High Peaks (although I'm sure it occurs quite frequently in winter). The winds were whipping everything into a frenzy, the clouds were moving by fast, and everything looked like a stormy, frothy sea. I could look out over the tops of the clouds covering the Dix Wilderness to the south- pretty neat. Pretty much every other High Peak was covered in clouds except Lower Wolf Jaw. I can only imagine what the conditions must have been like on an exposed summit like Marcy or Algonquin- probably winds strong enough to knock you over, plus zero visibility. Not a good day to be up that high for sure.
On my way back down, the clouds lifted somewhat, and I got some nice views of the sky lit up all red at dusk, as well as the rising moon. Even though it was dark, I took a different (slightly longer) way back- the Flume Trail, since I also needed that trail for my red line map.
Definitely a great way to spend an afternoon, getting both exercise and great pictures to add to my ever growing online album!
