We went to the mountains in winter believing we were prepared. We were not.
By the end of the first day that much was already clear.
The climb began badly. Ron and I tired quickly under our packs while Mike moved uphill with steady efficiency, apparently unaffected by either the grade or the cold. In retrospect the reasons were obvious enough. We spent most of our lives indoors, worked sedentary jobs, and had arrived with far less preparation than we should have had for a winter ascent.
Crossing an exposed rise near treeline, we walked directly into sustained high winds and severe cold. We dropped our packs and struggled into shell layers with numb hands while the wind tore at our clothing. By the time we reached Lion Head and attached crampons, the temperature had fallen well below zero and the gusts had become violent enough to make standing still difficult.
We climbed higher anyway. Near the ridge the wind became almost unmanageable. Visibility deteriorated. Exposed skin began to burn almost immediately. We lacked adequate face protection and warmer mittens, and daylight was disappearing faster than we wanted to admit. Finally, only a short distance below the summit, I made the decision to turn us around. It was the correct decision. It also felt terribly disappointing.
Back below treeline we descended mostly in silence, exhausted and overheated beneath layers that had seemed insufficient only hours earlier. By the time we reached camp after dark, the mountain already felt less like something we were attempting to climb and more like something that had assessed us and found us lacking. That realization stayed with me longer than the cold.
The trip quickly settled into a strange rhythm: climb, retreat, regroup, repeat. We spent long stretches moving between trailheads, gear shops, diners, and parking lots, always convinced that one more adjustment in equipment or planning would somehow compensate for our lack of fitness and experience. We slept in the vehicle at isolated trailheads while wind shook us throughout the night. More than once we woke to ice forming on the inside of the windows from our own breath.
Entire days disappeared this way.
One afternoon vanished almost completely in town while we searched for warmer gloves, face protection, extra layers, fuel, and food. At the time I was frustrated by the delay, but looking back I understand that none of us really knew how to evaluate the conditions we were entering. Most of my previous winter travel had been solo. Moving through the mountains as a group introduced another layer of responsibility that I was not yet experienced enough to manage well. Decision-making became slower, more compromised, less certain.
Meanwhile the mountain remained entirely indifferent. At the caretaker cabin we learned that Tuckerman Ravine was in dangerous condition. Avalanche hazard had made our intended route effectively impassable. That left Lion Head again as the only realistic option. We spent the evening in a lean-to melting snow, cooking, reorganizing gear, and trying to convince ourselves that persistence alone would compensate for deteriorating weather. During the night the temperature dropped to around -10°F.
By morning fresh snow and sustained wind had transformed the climb into something far more difficult than our previous attempts. Progress became slow and exhausting almost immediately. Trail breaking through deep unconsolidated snow consumed enormous amounts of energy. At times each step required lifting a leg through snow nearly to waist level before collapsing forward again under the weight of the pack.
Near the upper sections the wind intensified dramatically. Visibility narrowed to blinding white ice, snow, and scattered rock cairns emerging briefly through the spindrift. At one point Ron disappeared into a drift deep enough that Mike and I had to pull him back out. Higher still the gusts became violent enough that standing upright required concentration.
We continued for another half hour and gained almost no elevation.
Sheltering beside a partially buried cairn, we discussed whether to continue. Mike still wanted to push upward. Ron was exhausted. I was exhausted too, though less willing to admit it. The summit was still somewhere above us in the whiteout, but the real problem was not fear. It was mathematics. The mountain was consuming time and energy faster than we could safely afford, and even if we reached the summit, descending in worsening weather after dark would have carried risks none of us were equipped to manage. Once again I called for retreat.
That decision stayed with me for a long time afterward, though less because we failed to reach the summit than because the trip forced me to confront the gap between imagination and capability. Before that winter trip I had unconsciously treated mountains as tests of determination. Endurance, stubbornness, and tolerance for discomfort all seemed vaguely heroic from a distance. The reality was less romantic. Winter mountaineering depended on judgment, pacing, preparation, group dynamics, technical competence, and the willingness to turn around before circumstances made the decision for you. Mountains do not care how badly one wants the summit.
Back at camp we hung frozen clothing wherever we could, melted partially frozen river water, and ate continuously in an attempt to warm up. Oatmeal, soup, macaroni, hot chocolate — anything warm enough to offset the cold that had settled into our gear and bodies. By then nearly everything we owned was wet.
The next morning we abandoned the climb entirely. Part of me still wanted another attempt, but responsibility outweighed ambition. Ron had no interest in struggling uphill again and, truthfully, none of us had much left physically. The disappointment was real, but so was the relief.
Descending through fresh snow in calmer weather, the mountains looked transformed. Deep powder softened everything. Sound disappeared almost completely except for the muted compression of our boots in snow. Without the violence of wind and exposure, the landscape recovered a kind of severe beauty that had been impossible to appreciate during the climb itself.
That should have been the end of the trip.
Instead, almost impulsively, we decided to spend our remaining money skiing before returning home.
The transition felt absurd. Days earlier we had imagined ourselves winter mountaineers; now we were beginners wobbling around a ski area trying not to fall in front of obviously much more experienced and competent children. Mike adapted quickly. Ron struggled with snowboarding and eventually lost interest altogether. I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that I loved skiing.
The first runs were cautious and awkward. Looking downhill from the lift seemed far more intimidating than I expected, even on beginner terrain. But by afternoon Mike and I had drifted onto steeper trails almost accidentally. Somewhere near the bottom of one run, after a spectacular crash involving blowing clouds of powder, poles, and very little control, I looked at the trail map and realized we had just descended a black diamond run.
That moment changed something.
The mountains had rejected us completely as climbers, yet skiing opened another relationship to winter terrain altogether — less combative, less burdened by ideas of conquest or endurance. Movement itself became enjoyable again.
Late that night, standing half-naked in a nearly empty parking lot while changing clothes beside the car in 4-degree weather, I noticed a woman sitting in a nearby vehicle watching us with visible disbelief. The moment was so ridiculous that none of us could even defend it.
By then the trip had shed whatever mythology we had carried into it. What remained was better: exhaustion, embarrassment, cold, failure, adaptation, and the beginning of a more realistic understanding of mountains and of ourselves.
We drove home through the night.
For a long time afterward I thought of the trip largely as a failure because we never reached the summit. I no longer see it that way. The mountains did exactly what they should have done. They stripped away fantasy, exposed weakness honestly, and replaced borrowed ideas of toughness with something quieter and far more useful: respect.