Willoughby-
If I had known I'd be stuck walking the road for nine hours, I'd have given Greenleaf some serious consideration. The biggest real risk was that if my pace continued to deteriorate, I might not reach the summit before dark. Visibility was already lousy, so there's a chance I could lose the trail. It's not a great spot to be lost - there are cliffs to worry about if you try to get to the road by following a compass line or a stream, and I don't know that side of the mountain well at all. Most likely, I had enough time before dark to cover the distance over the summit to the hut, or at least get close enough that I couldn't get lost. But it seemed like a pointless risk, especially as it was just a choice between bail-out trails, neither of which ended anywhere near my car. I didn't want to become another "unprepared hiker caught in storm, stupidly continues to summit, needs rescue" statistic. It was a question of recognizing that I would be cutting my safety margin to almost nothing, without having a good reason to do so.