The last time I went to get these peaks, I had driven through horrible snow and the nerves just got bad enough that my body determined that it wasn't happening that day.  I hiked in to marcy dam and turned around.  This attempt, I came in from upper works.  It was a very wet day, and was predicted to be a wet day with on and off drizzle in the morning and warming temps in the afternoon.  The drive in had a couple spots of black ice, but it wasn't a horrible drive in.  

The group started, and we were going a decent pace, then bam, my body started showing signs that it wasn't going to make it.  About 3 miles in I determined I'd see how I was doing when I got to the lean-to at 4.5 miles, but I was 99% sure I was not going to be able to do the peaks today.  At the lean-to I told the group to go on without me, I was going to turn around and head out, and I'd text when I got out.  It sucked to do that, but at that point I knew that I was not going to be able to get up the peaks.  So, I turned around and took my time heading out.  In the end it was 9.8 miles over 4.5 hours, which is not a bad pace, but I was exhausted at the car, and when I got home, I napped for a couple hours.  

This was a very difficult decision for me.  It means I won't be done with my winter 46 this season.  I'm not going to take a day off to go out and solo those 2 peaks, and it would honestly put significant pressure on me to do Basin and Haystack no matter what on the 21st, so this is probably a blessing in disguise. I've been pushing myself this winter, and these have been some big hikes I've done the last couple weeks.  I'm either not fully recovered from the Marcy hike or I'm coming down with something... I've had some sinus pain the past couple days so it's quite possible I'm getting sick.

Next weekend I will do my last winter season hike and go get Marshall.  It's a shorter hike with the same approach I just took.  The weather looks like it'll be freezing back up, so it might be better temps, and hopefully more on the dry side instead of everything dripping.  That will leave me with 4 peaks over 2 hikes for next winter, that I can make sure are on better weather days.  It also allows me to break Haystack and Basin up over 2 hikes if I find some trails not broken out.  So, it's not all bad.

This brings me to 110 miles and 5.53 miles of elevation over 82 hours for the year.  I'm still at 41/46 for my winter round.