Day 2. 03/18. Gut check

uh

I froze my ass off last night. I woke up to at least four inches of snow and on and off hail sleet and snow. I had to make a hard decision.
I had met four other section hikers the night before, one pushing hypothermia. The weather was tough and I came close too. My speech got slow and I lost dexterity in my fingers. I took off my gloves and could see lines running from my wrists to my fingertips. Id never seen anything like that, and my first thought was the dye in my gloves had washed off. I realized they were the veins in my hand- they were dark and purple. I immediately found a rock overhang where I could dry off and I heated my hands around my stove. I changed clothes and did jumping jacks and pushups.
I was ok- I got warm. I'm used to pushing it when hiking and I love challenging myself. But yesterday was a real ego check. What I learned yesterday is how different this is from normal hiking, or even the strenuous hiking that I'm used to. Out here, you're on your own. Every damn little thing has a consequence.
Everything.
If you're lazy and you don't take your shoes and socks off when you take breaks, you get blisters. You forget to put your solar panel out, you don't get to phone friends and family at night. If you don't put your packcover on cause it's only drizzling and it's noon and warm and you think it'll dry later- you get proven dead wrong when a storm comes through and soaks you to the bone.
The mistake I made was not buying rain/snow pants and thermal underwear to wear at night. I have a fleece and a rain/wind/snow jacket. However, my pants were not nearly as waterproof as I thought they were, and over the course of the day, they soaked through from the rain and chilled me in the 20-40 mph winds this storm brought down on the mountains I was hiking in. I wanted to continue to Lake Morena where there was a market i could go into and get warm, but made camp just two miles short because it got dark and the storm got bad. I spent a cold night and woke up to find out none of my clothes had dried out-at all- and it was still going outside.

I had to decide whether to stay in my sleeping bag inside my tent with all my wet clothes not drying and ride the storm out for possibly 2 days, or pack everything up, put on wet clothes and book it to the safety of the Lake Morena campground. I waited for a lull in the storm and made a run for it. Probably a good decision too because the storm only got worse. I arrived at the Oak Shores Grocery and the owner Sam let me dry off and eat and wait while my dad made his way down to take me to get proper snow pants and thermals. Thank you trail angel Sam for letting me get your floor all wet while the snow was blowing sideways! And Thank you Dad for coming all the way down to make sure i wasn't miserable riding out this storm In wet clothes, even though the roads were icy and cars were sliding off the road!! I have to stay here at Lake Morena another day or two til this weather clears up. Next stop, Mt Laguna!!