Having only climbed halfway up the mountain, the heavy snow stalled

In researching the topic, I found arguments for using 'their" with "team".

Still, I am not sure that I really like it either, and maybe the seemingly incorrect relationship could be distracting. So I replaced "team" with "hikers".

Why is option B wrong? I picked B, I was trying to avoid passive voice.

B is incorrect because the climbing must be performed by hikers. The opening phrase in B modifies hikers' progress.

My thinking :

(A) Having only climbed halfway up the mountain, the heavy snow stalled the hikers' progress, obscured the trail and covered landmarks normally used for navigating. - [ Modifier error : who climbed halfway up the mountain? Heavy snow? illogical]

(B) Having climbed only halfway up the mountain, the hikers' progress was stalled by the heavy snowfall, which obscured the trail and covered landmarks normally used for navigating. [ Modifier error: Hiker's progress climbed halfway up the mountain? Illogical]

(C) Having climbed only halfway up the mountain, the hikers found their progress stalled by the heavy snowfall, obscuring the trail and covering landmarks normally used for navigating.[ Here the first modifier is correct. The second verb-ing modifier ' obscuring & Covering' modifies the entire preceding clause but has to make sense with the subject- 'hiker'. What is obscuring the trail and covering landmarks? The hiker? illogical - The snow is obscuring the trail and covering...! ]


(D) Only having climbed halfway up the mountain, the hikers found their progress stalled by the heavy snowfall that obscured the trail and covered normally used landmarks for navigating. [ First modifier is correct. second sentence did not sound right to me , although i could not exactly pinpoint what was wrong. snowfall cannot cover landmarks? would this sentence be correct if 'snow' had been used instead of 'snowfall'? also should it be 'That obscured and that covered'?]

(E) Having climbed only halfway up the mountain, the hikers found their progress stalled by the heavy snow, which obscured the trail and covered landmarks normally used for navigating. [ 1st modifier is correct, 2nd modifier is correct - best of the lot]

Why is 'D' wrong? Is it a diction error? Snowfall can't obscure trails but snow can?

Oh man. I didn't realize that I had used both "snow" and "snowfall". I might edit the question. Anyway, here is an explanation of why E is better than D.

(D) Only having climbed halfway up the mountain, the hikers found their progress stalled by the heavy snow that obscured the trail and covered normally used landmarks for navigating.

Only having climbed halfway up the mountain, the hikers found their progress stalled.

In the opening modifier, "only" is misplaced. The point is not the the hikers only climbed. The point is that they had climbed only halfway up.

snow that obscured the trail and covered normally used landmarks for navigating.

In this version "normally" is misplaced. In the OA version, the landmarks are "landmarks normally used for navigating." This version basically conveys that the snow covered normally used landmarks and that the snow did that for the purpose of navigating.

The snow covered normally used landmarks for the purpose of navigating. - illogical

The snow covered normally used landmarks for navigating. - illogical, or at least ambiguous and awkward - I could see how one could argue that this is ok.

The snow covered landmarks normally used for navigating. - clear and logical - This is better than D, and even if you were inclined to disagree with that assessment, I think you would agree that the combination of the placement of "only" and the placement of "normally" makes E the clear winner.

I was in doubt with 'Only'. E was the winner for me to. I just wanted to clear my confusion between 'snowfall' and 'snow'. And thanks for the clarification of 'normally'. It completely escaped my judgement.
Thanks

nothing but E makes sense...

the introductory modifier must modify the hikers - not their progress..
A and B are right away eliminated.

in C - the second ing modifier must associate with the subject and verb of the preceded clause...but it is not used correctly...so C is out too.

D - only having climbed - changes meaning.

E it is!

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.