Kind of off topic, but close enough in my opinion. I was hiking a 14er in Colorado and the news forecast said that it would rain in the afternoon (like 4pm). We were there at like 8am, so we thought we'd close to the bottom on our return by the time the rain set in, so we decided to go through with it anyway. This was our first mistake. About halfway up the mountain, around 11am, we look out sideways and see that the rainclouds were on their way. We thought that we'd be able to hike the second half of the mountain just as quickly as we hiked the first half of the mountain. So, again, we decide to press. This was our second mistake. You see, mountains get increasingly steep as you continue climbing, and that (with the increasing amount of snow) tends to slow you down. Looking back on it, I can see that we were rationalizing (we came all this way, we'll just take a group picture and immediately come back down). We keep hiking. Slowly, the snow on the ground goes from being 6 inches deep (at the base of the mountain) to being knee deep, and then waist deep. The snow had been there all day, so there was a layer about 2 inches thick on top that had hardened enough to support your weight if you stood on it, but the moment that you pressed down hard, your leg would break straight to the bottom. Now we're reaching the top, and I realize that my foot doesn't touch the ground anymore when my leg occasionally falls through the snow. This is where I legitimately start to feel uneasy about our decisions that day. But we're like 80% of the way up the mountain, and the clouds are close but they don't look too dark and it's just rain, so I didn't say anything. We keep pressing even though it's becoming clearer that we should turn around, but we're getting closer and closer to the top and we don't want to waste a trip. It slowly start getting darker, and soon it's snowing and we can see the top. We finally reach the summit and I'm excited to look behind me and around at the beautiful landscape, but the cloud is sitting on top of us. It actually felt cool to be able to be so close to a rain cloud and to feel the chilly air underneath it. The sun was completely blocked out and it was dark (not night-time dark, more like indoors-with-heavy-blinds-pulled-closed dark). We snap a few pictures and take the moment in. And then, on cue, our worst nightmare comes true. We start hearing low rumbles spread across this massive ceiling, and my friend's hair starts frizzing up and standing on end. She has complete terror come over her face, pulls her hair down, and tells us "Guys, we have to get down, NOW". We don't need an explanation, we just start sprinting down the way we came as fast as we can. But like I told you before, the snow doesn't handle pushing down well, and each attempt to run is foiled with your leg falling through the snow. This causes me to panic, and I don't know how long we tried that method, but it wasn't working well. Eventually we decided to sit down with our legs in front of us, leaning slightly backward, and slide down the incline toward the bottom. This would have worked great if it weren't for the jagged rocks that stuck out of the snow, the lack of breaks, and the cliff that was off to the right. I was waiting any second for one of us to lose control and tumble, or to shatter an elbow on a rock. I remember that the realization that we might die a quick and unstoppable death, and I prayed we didn't, but I knew it was completely out of my control at that point. I was going to have to accept whatever happened. We slid for what feels like 200 meters when lightning strikes the top of the mountain. It was deafening, and I swear it sounded like an explosion that split the air apart and collapsed it back together. Soon the slope wasn't steep enough to slide anymore, so we started running (again, with little luck) but this time the snow was shallow enough for us to plow through it by force (like right above the knee). It was exhausting and the hardened top layer was cutting up my shins and stung, but I didn't really care at that point. Slowly but surely we made it halfway down the mountain and when we turned around we could see the storm was dissipating. We slowed down and kept hiking downward, as the panic started to subside into unease. By the time we got to the bottom, the day was clear and sunny, like nothing had every happened. We laughed at how ludicrous the entire situation was, but we were definitely unsettled. It felt like we should've died, but somehow everything was fine again. It was surreal to say the least.