11: Lower Wolfjaw via Rooster Comb

It is finally actually Spring for reals and some of the mountains are safe to explore. With my daily exercise and shakedown hikes, I was feeling good about tackling a High Peak. Just a single peak day hike to start seemed like the right call and Lower Wolfjaw was an obvious choice. I am certain I'll be, once again, hiking through JBL via Phelps several times throughout this challenge, so I wanted to do something a little different. Getting up Lower Wolfjaw via Rooster Comb is about the same mileage if you also summit Rooster Comb itself and that seemed like a fun adventure. 

I was lucky to have Mark join me on this hike, mainly for the companionship but also because I literally left all my food at the trailhead. I did not eat him; he brought lots of extra food. 

Sunny was excited to have Daisy along. Prior to today she had 33 High Peaks to her name and she's a really good role model for Sunny.

The trail started out fairly dry and easily navigable. It did not remain dry, but the trail was very well-marked the entire way, even past Rooster Comb. 

Between the trailhead and Rooster Comb, the trail was well-groomed, featuring a lot of stone and wood stairs. 

We made decent time up and down Rooster Comb. We met one couple up here and took the time to enjoy the view.

You get a really good South and West view of the High Peaks region from this vantage point.

I highly recommend the Rooster Comb hike for just about anybody. The climb is easy and the trail is well-marked with lots of moving water. The payoff is well worth the four miles or so you'll be hiking.

The trail began to feel like a High Peaks hike when we started the ascent up and across Hedgehog. The trail was still well-marked, but it was far less visible at the foot level. We did have to refer to the map a couple of times through the Hedgehog portion, usually going up. We had plenty of mud, much more than we'd seen in the Lake George region recently. 

Above 3000 feet on the north side of the ascents, we started seeing a bit of old snow. Sunny was very excited to find it.

The top of Hedgehog Mountain had some snow as well, but the day was still very mild and sunny. The ridge was beautiful with ornery pines and mossy boulders. 

It's always a little dispiriting to descend before an ascent. The climbing wasn't too technical up to this point, though, and one of the reasons we were taking this path was to avoid a boring flat hike anyways.

We thought this mountain through the trees was Lower Wolfjaw. Har har har. In reality, it was a hump in the ridge taller than Hedgehog, I suppose you could call it a false summit. A friend told us later that it was often called "Wolf's Chin". We called it "Fuck Off Mountain". As we ascended it, the sky clouded over a bit and the air grew cold and breezy. The trail began to fill with "monorail" ice covered with pine needles. It was simply a mean, old bastard standing in the way of our goal. 

Hedgehog descended from 3390' to 3145' then Fuck Off Mountain ascended to 3990', then descended to 3870' prior to the final ascent up Lower Wolfjaw to 4177'.

The slide up the North side of Lower Wolfjaw is not as scary as many of the bloggers have made it out to be. It is certainly fairly vertical and features some technical climbing.  The slide was covered with snow and ice when we came to it and that added to the difficulty. However, unlike Gothics, I didn't fear for my life or anything; this slide doesn't dump you out onto the face of the mountian if you slip. 

A look back at Fuck Off Mountain (and Giant) with the slide in the foreground.

The summit had two big, thick, spiny deadfalls across the trail, but we were able to navigate around them.

Whatever bad mojo we had was left on Fuck Off Mountain because Lower Wolfjaw was warm and sunny at the summit. We tarried there a while enjoying our success.

Uncle Mark remembered to bring some treats.

The view from Lower Wolfjaw is much nicer than some bloggers make it out to be. It features a Southwest window with a surprisingly clear view down the Great Range to Marcy. 

Adirondack Kommando was considering doing Upper Wolfjaw again as well. Cooler heads prevailed.

We donned our spikes prior to attempting the descent down the slide.

Even Sunny found the descent difficult. We were very glad for our spikes. The ascent back up Fuck Off Mountain was brutal even though it was a couple hundred feet. I think it was mainly a psychological effect than a physical challenge. Still, there was a spiritual pall on Fuck Off summit... it was still cold there, and icy. Even re-ascending Hedgehog didn't feel as cruel.  As always, the walk out to the trailhead was my least favorite part of the trip. I find the return walk to always be laborious. However, I was lucky to have have Mark with me this time to make the slog bearable thanks to our engaging conversation.

The pups were done!

45,000 steps this day. The watch did not track a very accurrate distance, however. I think the hike is only 10 miles or so.

Here's the map of our hike.

Number eleven is down! Here's a tentative plan for the rest of the season...

• Late May: Easy hike
• Early June: Something in the 8-10 mile range
• Late June: Street & Nye?
• Early July: Algonquin, Iroquois, Wright?
• Late July: Grace, Macomb, Hough, South Dix
• Early August: 15 mile Moreau shakedown
• Late August: Sawteeth via Pyramid Peak

I do have some relatively easy ones left to do, but I don't want to use those up early on. I'd really like to try getting more challenging peaks done. I am wondering if doing portions of the harder hikes now might be a good idea. Certainly it seems like "wasted effort", but I can see some value in becoming familiar with an area before really comitting to doing 4 peaks in that area all at once.

For example, two problem areas are going to be the Santononis (17 miles) and Blake (21.5 miles via Dix). I am not very proficient at camping and I do expect to start camping for some of these, however, I may try to do just Santononi itself (10 miles) and Dial/Nippletop (14.5 miles). The same logic would apply to hiking Seymour Mountain, then coming back for the rest of the Sewards later.

Knowing I'd have to do them again is a little bit of a bummer, but I'm not sure it's a bad idea. A lot of time can be spent pecking around and making sure I'm going in the right direction and I feel like doing "scouting runs" of bigger hikes might be beneficial not only in making the big hike go faster, but safer as well. 

At some point, I will definitely need to rip the band-aid off and overnight because some of these are impossible to do otherwise unless you're 23 and fit. It's possible the Sawteeth/Pyramid Peak hike will be that first overnight.