Originally Posted by
garlic08
Washington State has plenty of similar memories for me, most recently a spring bike tour over the North Cascades Hwy. Here's an excerpt from my journal:
"Today was an exciting one. I decided to try Sherman Pass today, though at 5500' it's considerably above yesterday's 4500' snow line. The ascent went well. I had plenty of energy and strength. But the rain got pretty heavy on the pass, and as much as I tried, I could not keep dry. I kept my thickest jersey dry in the pack and I donned it at the summit, but I was concerned about the descent. I had a cold headwind, too.
On the descent, a strange thing happened. My bike has been very stable with the load in the back and none on front. But now it started wobbling. I finally figured out it was me, shivering. That's not good. I stopped just below snow line and ate lunch. Of course, immediately after eating, it got worse. I'm used to that from winter trips. So I started doing squats of a sort, up and down from the saddle, using the thigh muscles to generate some heat. To my surprise, that worked. Then I tucked as tight as I could to keep the wind off my torso and that helped too, in a way, but I didn't like going over 40 mph in the first stages of hypothermia.
The steep descent lasted about 10 miles and the air warmed a bit and the rain slackened, so the crisis was over and my clothes were even dried out before I got into Kettle Falls."
I've purposely over-used my thigh muscles on hiking trips to generate heat on descents, most memorably on the PCT in Washington during a very wet August.
But absolutely, as mentioned already, keeping well fed and even hydrated (oxymoronic during a rain storm) is extremely important in those circumstances. It is really difficult to stop and fill up a water bottle and drink it in a freezing, soaking rain, but it's so important.
It sounds like experience won the day for the OP, and he added another tool to the kit. Knowing when to bail out is a critical skill.