Dates: September 30, 2000
Team: Mike, Teena, & Rick Allen
Location: Adirondack High Peaks
Destination: Lower Wolf Jaw (4,175') & Upper Wolf Jaw (4,185')
Approach: Ausable Club parking to trailhead
Author: Mike
This was our second hiking trip in the High Peaks with Rick. He joined us for a trip up Cascade Mountain last year, and then hiked Giant Mountain (solo) the following day. This year, Rick joined us for another 2-day excursion. The hike to Lower Wolf Jaws was a stubborn one with flare-ups of Mike's knee, Teena's foot, and Rick's hamstring hobbling our efforts. As a result, it took over five hours to hike to the crowded summit. At the junction point between Upper and Lower Wolf Jaws, it was decided to hike Lower Wolf Jaw first. We made this decision more for strategic reasons than we did for any other. Strategically, we felt that if we didn't have time to hike both, Lower Wolf Jaw was the better choice to hike NOW since it was slightly more out of the way to hike in the future. Upper Wolf Jaw could more easily be combined with a second mountain hike in the future without having to traverse old ground, or so Mike's 46'er wannabe reasoning went.Details:
It was a good day for hiking as the skies were mostly clear and the temperatures reached as high as 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We parked at the Ausable club entrance around 8:00am, and proceeded to hike from the trailhead behind the Ausable club immediately.
Within a half hour, Mike's knee (patellar tendonitis) started to act up. So we increased the number of rest stops. This was good since Rick was nursing a poor hamstring acquired at one of our softball games earlier in the summer. After two hours at a leisurely pace, Teena's foot flared up as well. Our hiking was quite the merry event after that since we each had an ailment, and our pace was so slow.
We finally reached the junction point between Upper & Lower Wolf Jaws after nearly five hours of hiking. No one complained. Why should we? It was a nice pace and it was a beautiful day. The team decided to hike Lower Wolf Jaw based on Mike's strategic rationale… Sounds of rebellion were in the air however as the rag-tag beat up team reached a summit that was crowded by both trees and other hikers. Through the trees, there was only one clear view from the summit, but like the city streets we sought refuge from, it was clogged by people. We took a number and waited our turn in line to take pictures from the open ledge. Then we found the only piece of open real estate - a most uncomfortable boulder slanting down into the trees on the north face - and sat down to eat our lunch and nurse our wounds. Amazingly, our trip down was much easier. Was there something in the food? We bought sandwiches at a little Deli in Keane Valley with such delicacies as vegetable bread. Was there an added benefit - a special ingredient or elixir baked into that wonderful bread? Or maybe the calls from a couple of pub burgers and mugs of micro-brewed beer motivated our pace! Regardless… We finished our descent in about 3.5 hours, and the ailments that slowed our initial ascent all but disappeared. We drove back to Lake Placid where we gulped down the latest nut brown beers and fed on burgers at the Lake Placid Brew Pub
What will we remember? Awesome weather, beat up bodies, and great conversation will get you to the summit, but slowly. The Lower Wolf Jaw summit views were a bit of a let down - after all, a good part of the reason we hike is for the views. However, that's what happens when we "wing it" since we prefer to experience the views without reading about them first! J
Pictures:
TBD - Converting all the old trip reports into this blog
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