Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
I get that. As viewers, we're waiting for that event. But for the characters of the show, they can't know that the wall will inevitably have some trigger event that allows them to pass through. That'd be ridiculous.Hardholm was basically the last "big" wildling "city" and it is fairly close to the "edge" corner - of the wall - its like eastwatch just on the other side of the wall - the army of the dead destroyed it and all other wildling camps from the deep north all the way to the wall. "The Dead" did not come from nowwhere, they ARE the wildlings that have been living in the north and have been killed.
The wall is "magic" in its creation and as a boundary - so they are not just waiting to GET to the wall and then just wonder past it, its not that we are literally waiting for them to GET there and just walk past it.
We are waiting for the "Event" to happen that will allow the white walkers, and their undead hordes to pass the wall.
Also the "South" -North, the area near the wall - was not as cold/deep north as the north-north- they noticed cooling whenever a white walker was by, they apparently need this very deep cold - as "winter comes" it makes the parts of the north that were "cold...but not fuckn COLD" now fuckn cold and the walks do not need to exert their power to make the area around them "deep cold" or whatever you want to label it as.
So now that winter is here, we are awaiting whatever the event is that allows them to pass the wall...we are not waiting for them to literally "get to the wall" because yes, they have had years and shambling zombies would have eventually gotten there.
The whole thing just points back to terrible writing by GRRM, similar to post-book 3. He needs to get the pieces in place to move the story along. But in this case, one of his pieces just has to sit there...for years. The White Walkers are literally just sitting in one spot playing with their dicks. Except we're constantly shown them "marching." Marching in fucking circles, biding their time, apparently.