Be careful in the mountains at night. During the day you'll find wolves in small groups, but at night you'll risk encountering much larger groups of wolves along with 1 and 2 star versions. When you're just setting foot in the mountains for the first time, a 2 star wolf is death incarnate.

As jonnin mention above, frost resist potions help a lot as well. They greatly reduce damage from flying drakes (bring your bow) and if you don't have a piece of gear that provides passive frost resist, it's literally required to survive.

Best of luck and I hope you find tons of silver!