Steve Steffy
Well-known member
My daughter Tori and I made the 7 hour ride up to Keene Valley, NY from northwest Pennsylvania on Thursday. My initial plan was to camp out since I have plenty of gear from hiking and backpacking here in PA, but Tori isn’t all set up for cold weather camping yet. That gear will come later. So we opted to stay at the Roostercomb Inn instead. That’s a nice little place, I absolutely love the rustic wood furniture that Steve makes there. He was a heck of a nice guy as well. Anyway, I’ve been scouring trip reports and weather conditions for the last few weeks trying to gauge what the conditions may be like when we arrive. My conclusion...bring everything just in case.
The alternate plan for the day was to just take it easy and check things out around town and get an early start on Friday morning. This also provided us some time to do one last gear check, as well as pack our bags appropriately. My overly ambitious plan for Friday was to summit Lower Wolfjaw, Upper Wolfjaw, Armstrong, Gothics and maybe even Sawteeth if we were feeling up for the challenge and had the time. Certainly a challenging goal to strive for, but what the heck, setting a one-mountain goal seemed silly to me.
Sleep came in hourly increments throughout the night. I didn’t want to miss the alarm so I awoke every hour to check the time. 05:30 rolled around and we geared up and headed out the door as quietly as possible for the drive over to St. Huberts with muffins in hand. After signing in at 06:15 and conferring with the Ranger on duty we headed down Lake Road with plans to hit the West River Trail and take that to the Wedge Brook Trail.
So far so good, that section of trail was relatively uneventful up to Wedge Brook Falls & Cascade. There was a sprinkling of snow here and there, but nothing to be concerned with. We decided to hang out for a bit at the falls and refill our water bottles before heading up the mountain. This is when it got interesting.
Up to that point, following the blue trail markers was no issue. Just about the time you really started to look for the next one it would seemingly appear from nowhere. At some point I began searching for a trail marker and all I saw was a reddish / orange marker. I thought that was a little odd since I didn’t recall any trails converging in this spot on the map. I told Tori to stay put while I did some searching. After a brief jaunt through the woods I came back over and placed my map up on the tree. It was time to show off my superior navigational skills. I pointed out that the trail in fact does start veering away from Wedge Brook and that seems to be about where we were. So, we’ll head off in this direction to look for a marker. As I pointed up and away from the brook, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye not 18" above where my map was posted on the tree…a blue marker! My double take and look of disbelief did not go unnoticed by Tori. I was quick though…that’s the direction I said we had to go – I was right. In my own defense, there was no visible marker on anything in the direction we were traveling.
After a while we spied our first glimpse of Lower Wolfjaw. As intimidated as she was, we pressed on. The trail gradually began to steepen and I slowed the pace a bit. The snow was getting a bit deeper, but still not enough to warrant snowshoes. I glanced down the hill to check on Tori’s progress and noticed a couple of other hikers gaining on us. I was really enjoying breaking my own trail but I didn’t want to push Tori harder than I already was. I want her to do this again in the near future. I opted to let them pass. We shared the usual casual greetings and "where are ya heading?" conversations. Their plan was to tackle Upper and then Lower Wolfjaws. Perfect! It won’t be long and I’ll be breaking my own trail to Lower Wolfjaw again.
We continued on barebooting and reached the junction to Lower Wolf Jaw and Upper Wolf Jaw. It wasn't long before we were pushing for the summit of Lower. The previous gradual climb really zapped a lot out of Tori as we started getting into more rock scrambling mixed with ice and snow. At this point she was really questioning my sanity, as well as her ability to complete 5 peaks in a day. We discussed that briefly and decided to knock Gothics and Sawteeth out of the plan. Though, I wasn’t giving up hope on Upper Wolfjaw and Armstrong just yet.　
We finally reached the summit of Lower Wolfjaw…or so we thought. I wasn’t really convinced by the signs at our location that we were actually on the summit. I walked further while my daughter rested. The trail seemed to descend down the other side rather quickly. I returned to find her refueling on peanut butter M & M’s and beef jerky. Well that was to good to resist so I joined her. After taking a few photos from the limited views our location had to offer we descended with plans to hit Upper Wolfjaw next.
She opted to put her spikes on while I continued barebooting it. Her traction improved greatly and I was getting a bit jealous. I decided to spike up right around the Wolfjaw Notch area. I’m glad I did to. Not that I couldn’t carry on without the spikes, but they did make travel much easier.
After we began ascending again, we caught glimpses of Lower Wolfjaw from a different persepective. That’s when I noticed it…that little dip in the summit. "Oh crap" I thought. We may have only reached a false summit. We pressed on as I dismissed the thought of going all the way up there and not attaining the summit. I kept checking the views and sure enough LWJ kept taunting me. I really should have looked at the map better while we were up there. Or maybe even dug out the guide book I packed along. Oh well, you know what they say about hind sight. After a while UWJ had my full attention with some of the steep sections and ropes in the trail. I opted to stay away from the rope and managed a mildly challenging scramble up the snow and ice covered rock slab. Tori opted to pull her way up the rope…the look on her face was priceless.
We reached the top shortly afterward and again didn’t notice a summit sign there either. We followed a "Trail" sign but all of the tracks from other hikers that day didn’t continue any further. I sat there and scratched my head. Then I decided to break some trail. Great! This is descending even quicker than LWJ did. "This can’t possibly be the summit", I thought. I dug my map out as Tori casually munched on more M & M’s. Then I saw it! We were on a false summit again. Its right there on the map plain as day! There’s a col we have to descend and then finish the ascent to the true UWJ Summit. The guys that passed us earlier never reached the summit. They must have been fooled the same as we were back on LWJ. We were both a bit disappointed by such a rookie mistake on my part, but quickly decided we would make sure to summit LWJ on the next trip up.
After a decent break and a discussion of our options it was decision time…"Are you up for tackling Armstrong today"? I asked, even though I was pretty sure what the answer would be.
"I don’t think so, I’m exhausted. I’ve never been this exhausted in my life!"
"No problem, we’re reaching that time to start heading back anyway". I really didn’t want to go back down that area with the rope. That turned out to be the easy part though. Yes, I broke down and used it for the descent, but that was due in part to nearly sliding down an icy rock slab 30’ – 40’. Tori negotiated off the same slab before me and into some cripplebrush fairly easily for that part of the descent. As I started to make my way over to the side of the slab I slipped somehow, even with the spikes on. I landed hard on my left elbow and quickly rolled to grab a nearby tree. That really got the adrenaline flowing, but I was no worse for the wear. All I could see was my big butt bouncing off of the rocks all of the way down that section…not a comforting thought.
The rest of our descent was somewhat uneventful and we both agreed we couldn’t wait to get back up to bag some more peaks. As we passed the Wedge Brook falls it was clear that the sun was going to beat us to the finish line. I picked up the pace some; however, Tori put on a burst of speed that could only come from an overload of peanut butter M & M’s. Well that and she didn’t really like the idea of being on the trail in the dark. I could still see fine; I didn’t see the need to dig into the bag for flashlights. She was hauling butt down the trail leaving dust flying in her wake. Well it turns out she had to hike through the woods in the dark after all, and she survived just fine. It didn't get really dark until we were back on Lake Rd. I did have plenty of light for us both in case of an emergency. But it was much more fun throwing sticks into the brush beside her as she blazed the trail back to the truck. I haven’t let her in on that little secret yet.
1 down 45 to go…here are some pictures from the trip.
https://picasaweb.google.com/107221820310915318353/UpperWolfjaw?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Steve
The alternate plan for the day was to just take it easy and check things out around town and get an early start on Friday morning. This also provided us some time to do one last gear check, as well as pack our bags appropriately. My overly ambitious plan for Friday was to summit Lower Wolfjaw, Upper Wolfjaw, Armstrong, Gothics and maybe even Sawteeth if we were feeling up for the challenge and had the time. Certainly a challenging goal to strive for, but what the heck, setting a one-mountain goal seemed silly to me.
Sleep came in hourly increments throughout the night. I didn’t want to miss the alarm so I awoke every hour to check the time. 05:30 rolled around and we geared up and headed out the door as quietly as possible for the drive over to St. Huberts with muffins in hand. After signing in at 06:15 and conferring with the Ranger on duty we headed down Lake Road with plans to hit the West River Trail and take that to the Wedge Brook Trail.
So far so good, that section of trail was relatively uneventful up to Wedge Brook Falls & Cascade. There was a sprinkling of snow here and there, but nothing to be concerned with. We decided to hang out for a bit at the falls and refill our water bottles before heading up the mountain. This is when it got interesting.
Up to that point, following the blue trail markers was no issue. Just about the time you really started to look for the next one it would seemingly appear from nowhere. At some point I began searching for a trail marker and all I saw was a reddish / orange marker. I thought that was a little odd since I didn’t recall any trails converging in this spot on the map. I told Tori to stay put while I did some searching. After a brief jaunt through the woods I came back over and placed my map up on the tree. It was time to show off my superior navigational skills. I pointed out that the trail in fact does start veering away from Wedge Brook and that seems to be about where we were. So, we’ll head off in this direction to look for a marker. As I pointed up and away from the brook, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye not 18" above where my map was posted on the tree…a blue marker! My double take and look of disbelief did not go unnoticed by Tori. I was quick though…that’s the direction I said we had to go – I was right. In my own defense, there was no visible marker on anything in the direction we were traveling.
After a while we spied our first glimpse of Lower Wolfjaw. As intimidated as she was, we pressed on. The trail gradually began to steepen and I slowed the pace a bit. The snow was getting a bit deeper, but still not enough to warrant snowshoes. I glanced down the hill to check on Tori’s progress and noticed a couple of other hikers gaining on us. I was really enjoying breaking my own trail but I didn’t want to push Tori harder than I already was. I want her to do this again in the near future. I opted to let them pass. We shared the usual casual greetings and "where are ya heading?" conversations. Their plan was to tackle Upper and then Lower Wolfjaws. Perfect! It won’t be long and I’ll be breaking my own trail to Lower Wolfjaw again.
We continued on barebooting and reached the junction to Lower Wolf Jaw and Upper Wolf Jaw. It wasn't long before we were pushing for the summit of Lower. The previous gradual climb really zapped a lot out of Tori as we started getting into more rock scrambling mixed with ice and snow. At this point she was really questioning my sanity, as well as her ability to complete 5 peaks in a day. We discussed that briefly and decided to knock Gothics and Sawteeth out of the plan. Though, I wasn’t giving up hope on Upper Wolfjaw and Armstrong just yet.　
We finally reached the summit of Lower Wolfjaw…or so we thought. I wasn’t really convinced by the signs at our location that we were actually on the summit. I walked further while my daughter rested. The trail seemed to descend down the other side rather quickly. I returned to find her refueling on peanut butter M & M’s and beef jerky. Well that was to good to resist so I joined her. After taking a few photos from the limited views our location had to offer we descended with plans to hit Upper Wolfjaw next.
She opted to put her spikes on while I continued barebooting it. Her traction improved greatly and I was getting a bit jealous. I decided to spike up right around the Wolfjaw Notch area. I’m glad I did to. Not that I couldn’t carry on without the spikes, but they did make travel much easier.
After we began ascending again, we caught glimpses of Lower Wolfjaw from a different persepective. That’s when I noticed it…that little dip in the summit. "Oh crap" I thought. We may have only reached a false summit. We pressed on as I dismissed the thought of going all the way up there and not attaining the summit. I kept checking the views and sure enough LWJ kept taunting me. I really should have looked at the map better while we were up there. Or maybe even dug out the guide book I packed along. Oh well, you know what they say about hind sight. After a while UWJ had my full attention with some of the steep sections and ropes in the trail. I opted to stay away from the rope and managed a mildly challenging scramble up the snow and ice covered rock slab. Tori opted to pull her way up the rope…the look on her face was priceless.
We reached the top shortly afterward and again didn’t notice a summit sign there either. We followed a "Trail" sign but all of the tracks from other hikers that day didn’t continue any further. I sat there and scratched my head. Then I decided to break some trail. Great! This is descending even quicker than LWJ did. "This can’t possibly be the summit", I thought. I dug my map out as Tori casually munched on more M & M’s. Then I saw it! We were on a false summit again. Its right there on the map plain as day! There’s a col we have to descend and then finish the ascent to the true UWJ Summit. The guys that passed us earlier never reached the summit. They must have been fooled the same as we were back on LWJ. We were both a bit disappointed by such a rookie mistake on my part, but quickly decided we would make sure to summit LWJ on the next trip up.
After a decent break and a discussion of our options it was decision time…"Are you up for tackling Armstrong today"? I asked, even though I was pretty sure what the answer would be.
"I don’t think so, I’m exhausted. I’ve never been this exhausted in my life!"
"No problem, we’re reaching that time to start heading back anyway". I really didn’t want to go back down that area with the rope. That turned out to be the easy part though. Yes, I broke down and used it for the descent, but that was due in part to nearly sliding down an icy rock slab 30’ – 40’. Tori negotiated off the same slab before me and into some cripplebrush fairly easily for that part of the descent. As I started to make my way over to the side of the slab I slipped somehow, even with the spikes on. I landed hard on my left elbow and quickly rolled to grab a nearby tree. That really got the adrenaline flowing, but I was no worse for the wear. All I could see was my big butt bouncing off of the rocks all of the way down that section…not a comforting thought.
The rest of our descent was somewhat uneventful and we both agreed we couldn’t wait to get back up to bag some more peaks. As we passed the Wedge Brook falls it was clear that the sun was going to beat us to the finish line. I picked up the pace some; however, Tori put on a burst of speed that could only come from an overload of peanut butter M & M’s. Well that and she didn’t really like the idea of being on the trail in the dark. I could still see fine; I didn’t see the need to dig into the bag for flashlights. She was hauling butt down the trail leaving dust flying in her wake. Well it turns out she had to hike through the woods in the dark after all, and she survived just fine. It didn't get really dark until we were back on Lake Rd. I did have plenty of light for us both in case of an emergency. But it was much more fun throwing sticks into the brush beside her as she blazed the trail back to the truck. I haven’t let her in on that little secret yet.
1 down 45 to go…here are some pictures from the trip.
https://picasaweb.google.com/107221820310915318353/UpperWolfjaw?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Steve
