I usually go into the mountains with troll armor, an iron helmet (The helmet doesn't slow you down.), an iron atgeir, the best bow I have at the time, and a stagbreaker. The atgeir stuns wolves before they bite you, and even if they come up from behind you can still get them if you're fast enough. Bronze works too, but iron is better. Use the bow for drakes and do your best to snipe them before they start bombing you. For golems, I just try to lead them away from where I want to go. They're slow and don't path well along cliffs.

No point in using the stagbreaker until you are in an area with obsidian, drake nests, log cabins, or golems. Occasionally you can find some sticking out. Obsidian says "Too Hard" too, so look for the message where there is no obsidian, or mine that out of the way for arrows.

But as far as "early" goes, you must at least have an iron pick axe, so no, you can't do it before you get iron. You might as well make the frost potion at that point.