At the Hermit Lake shelter area we used one of the lean-tos to put on our crampons and heavier gear. From here the trail went nearly vertical and the wind got a lot stronger.

GPS Coordinates: N44 15.666 W71 17.231

From the Hermit Lake lean-to we took the Lion's Head trail up. It was mostly vertical (not enough to require ropes) and snow covered.

At treeline (where the trees stop growing) we stopped to put on our summit kits. After struggling in the wind, rocks and snow drifts for a while, we stopped at the Lion's Head rock feature to gather strength and regroup. The temperature was now 5° F.

GPS Coordinates: N44 15.897 W71 17.561

After the Lion's Head there's a short stretch of exposure with Tuckerman and Huntington Ravines to your left. The wind coming up from the ravines was insane. It would blow so hard, you'd have to stop and hold yourself upright with all your strength. When the gusts passed, you could continue forward. 

We finally found cover in the Alpine Garden - a short stretch of short trees (in this link you get a view of what I'm talking about, but in reverse. The Alpine Garden is the stretch of green with the Lion's Head rock formation at the far end of the trail. You can see the exposure into the ravines on the right and the stretch of super exposed trail between the Lion's Head and the Alpine Garden).

At the end of the Alpine Garden we had caught up to the other groups. The red arrow indicates the folks with the furthest progress. This group consisted of an EMS guide, his client and three other people going for the top. At this point the top is still 1,000ft of elevation gain in .9 miles. The snow was horribly drifted here. The guide was breaking trail through three foot drifts. It was very slow going.

Based on our time allotment (on a good day it typically takes five hours to make the ascent and three to get back down. It had taken us five hours just to get to this point), we had about forty five minutes left to try for the summit or descend partly in the dark.

It didn't take long watching the lead group struggle and get hardly no where to decide we'd head back.

GPS Coordinates:  N44 15.888 W71 17.932

We were relatively protected from the wind, so we took a minute to confirm our decision, look around and take some pictures. This is a shot of the top of Tuckerman Ravine. 

Discussing our options some more. Remember the summit kit fashion show in the motel room? This is where things didn't work out for the summit kits and part of the reason we decided to head back. Both Buddy and Craig's goggles fogged and froze. You can see Craig has his off his eyes so he can see. At this point his goggles were so bad it didn't matter that his breath was making them worse.

We had actually been wearing our down coats since the Lion Head. Typically you throw the down coat on when you stop to keep warm, but throw it back in your bag when you get moving again. Rarely do you need it while hiking. The wind and temps were so bad the down seemed necessary.

Looking at this shot I see I'm wearing my down coat, down mittens, glove liners, my shell (wind protection though it's under my down), a fleece vest and a polypro turtleneck. On my legs were my shell pants and polypro long johns. We were supposed to bring fleece pants as an insulating layer for our legs, but I never needed it. As long as I'm moving, my legs usually stay warm with very little insulation. On my head is my wind stopper (really dense fleece)balaclava, wind stopper hat, and shell hood.

My goggles stayed clear. Partly because I've done this before and knew to keep them into the wind as much as possible and partly because I don't think I was overdressed. My body wasn't putting out much heat/moisture. Only my balaclava is covered with ice - obviously from my breath. If you look at subsequent pictures of Buddy and Craig, you'll see their hats are also covered with ice (mine was not), which tells me they were sweating (putting out heat/moisture) a lot and probably had a lot to do with their goggles fogging/freezing.

Then again, niether one of them froze the nerve endings in their fingers.  I should also point out that little triangle of skin under my left eye exposed by my loose balaclava got frost nipped. If I'd been putting out more heat that probably wouldn't have happened.