I began to mentally curse the snowboard strapped to my pack. Conversation between group members had come to a halt. Mounting frustration at the effort it took to make progress was evident on everyone's face. We were all visibly exhausted, slowing to a moderate crawl. We came to rest at a river crossing and contemplated our situation.
Decision making under the influence of the mountain is sometimes difficult.
Admitting defeat is not often easy, our ego's simply don't like it. But admit defeat is exactly what we did. In a two minute discussion the group decided that the combination of too much snow, too little sunlight, and our rapidly declining pace under the conditions was enough to turn us around. In those two minutes we also quashed over two weeks of planning and grand expectations. Our retreat and decent was rapid.