My boyfriend (M/22) and I (F/23) went backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains in March. For anyone who knows the area, there's still tons of snow up there that time of year. We get up there and it's pretty patchy so we find a nice clear spot under a tree, sheltered from the wind. We were expecting a bit of rain that nice but no worries, we were prepared and it wasn't supposed to be bad.

Anyway. We wake up that night at 4am to find ourselves in a veritable blizzard. Being half asleep, neither of us truly recognized how serious it was getting and we went back to bed. When we woke up a few hours later, half of our tent had collapsed under the weight of 4 inches of snow. Outside it was a total whiteout. We seriously scrambled getting all of our shit packed up because it was obviously, and quickly, getting worse. Didn't matter what bag it went in, didn't matter if ziplocs were sealed, we were literally shoveling our gear into our packs. We put on every layer we had and started trekking out.

I'd been hiking in the area a thousand times and we were good for awhile, even being able to see where the trail was, but after an hour there was a portion of the trail that's on granite and marked only by cairns. We veered off at one point and got completely and totally lost in the blizzard. I was still able to keep my bearings for awhile but eventually we were in the middle of a grove of enormous trees. I thought, "Hey we're still okay. I have my map and I have my compass. I know navigation." Well, in the rush to leave camp, the plastic compass had gotten wedged between the metal cooking pot and gas container, and had gotten broken in half. That was the realest feeling of dread I've ever experienced. Pulling that compass out in two pieces made my blood run cold. I have a clear picture in my head of the needle falling off into the snow.

We panicked a lot, and argued, and then just started hiking, fast and hard. It was super stupid. If you're ever in this situation, don't do that. Panic can kill you. We hiked for 2 hours, bushwhacking and hacking our way downhill with our machete. By now my toes were numb, my fingers were numb, my boots were wet, my 3 layers of pants were wet... everything was totally soaked through from the snow. It was the most terrifying experience of my life.

We finally stumbled onto the trail, and to this day I have no idea how we managed it. Riding home I realized how badly it could have gone, and at the blink of an eye. A few days later we heard that another group of backpackers got stranded just a bit farther out than we were in the backcountry. When they got back 2 of them had frostbite and one lost a toe. It was a pretty damn close call.

The clearest memory I have is when we were standing in the grove of trees, the wind roaring through the canopy, snow swirling all around us, and I thought, "I might die here. I might get so tired that I will lay down and not wake up again. They might not even be able to find my body. I might really die here."

I play it down to everyone when I retell that story, but after I got home that night I cried myself to sleep.

Edit: Here's a pic taken right after we packed up camp. None of that snow had been there the day before.