The Mountains will kill you with weather before anything with teeth gets the chance. Freezing does steady damage that ignores armour entirely, so the first problem to solve is simply staying warm.
Solving the cold first
You need one of these before you set foot up there:
- Frost resistance mead, the early answer. Cheap and effective, but it runs on a timer.
- A wolf fur cape, the permanent answer. Once you have one you can stop thinking about the cold entirely.
- Lox cape later, which does the same job.
Finding silver
Silver is buried, not on the surface. You need the 
Wishbone from Bonemass. Equip it and walk the slopes: it pings faster as you close in on a deposit, then you dig down with a pickaxe.
Deposits are big, so once you hit one it is worth clearing it properly rather than taking a few and moving on.
What lives up there
- Wolves, fast and in packs, especially at night. Parry them or fight in a doorway.
- Drakes, which shoot frost from the air. Bring a bow.
- Stone golems, slow but brutal. They are weak to pickaxes, which is odd but true.
- Fenring at night, which are genuinely dangerous.
Once you have silver you can make wolf armour, a silver sword and a draugr fang bow, which is the best bow in the game for a long stretch. Then it is time for Moder.
