Stranded in the mountains with his Porsche stuck on a frigid road, Mark Schroeder trekked uphill through snow in soaked cotton clothing and Adidas Porsche sneakers.

His would-be rescuers were looking for him, but they were far away in the next county, while his girlfriend waited in the car, expecting the worst.

"I really thought he was going to walk to his death," Janette DeGrace said Thursday.

DeGrace and Schroeder described their ordeal less than a day after they were rescued Wednesday from the snowy Sierra near French Meadows Reservoir and taken to a hospital in Auburn.

It began Sunday, when the couple left Sacramento for a day in the foothills.

"We were just going for a little drive," said DeGrace.

They took Schroeder's silver 1999 Porsche, not his four-wheel-drive, because they weren't planning on going all the way to the snow.

They stopped briefly in Coloma, then Georgetown, where they had a drink before heading into the mountains.

"I wanted to take her up to Uncle Tom's Cabin," Schroeder said, referring to a famed watering spot along an old logging road.

Afterward, they planned to head out Ice House Road but were told that it was snowed over.

"She said 'You probably won't be able to go through,' " Schroeder recalled.

Instead, they took a route that led them by French Meadows Reservoir. There was snow on the road, but Schroeder told DeGrace he'd had the Porsche in snow before.

In a spot where tires had worn a track, but snow was piled in the middle, the low-slung sports car got hung up.

It was getting late, around 4:30 p.m., so they decided to spend the night and free the car in the morning.

There was no cellphone reception deep in the canyon, so they switched off their phones to save the batteries.

Overnight, however, it continued to snow. They realized they were snowed in and decided to wait for a rescue.

A search began when they didn't show up for family functions. It was even on the right track when it got diverted.

Led by Schroeder's friend and co-worker Jim Jungsten, searchers spread fliers along the Highway 49 corridor from Coloma south.

A woman who saw one came forward to say she'd seen the couple at the Charles B. Mitchell Winery near Somerset and Fair Play in El Dorado County. "She told it to the detective and everything," said Jungsten.

Rescuers then focused their efforts on that area, while Schroeder and Grace were miles to the north.

The couple, meanwhile, inventoried supplies and rationed their granola bars, trail mix, Girl Scout cookies, water. Schroeder calculated how long their gas would last if they ran the engine periodically to keep warm.

They huddled in one of the car's tiny seats with DeGrace on top.

Schroeder stomped SOS in the snow and honked the horn and flashed the lights in Morse code to try to attract planes. They waited.

"There were plenty of times we just sat and stared out the window," he said.

DeGrace started feeling poorly Tuesday because of a pancreatic condition and the lack of medicine.

"I made a decision," Schroeder said. "I had to walk out."

At 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, he set out.

"He didn't have a good coat, we had no blankets," said DeGrace. "I gave him my socks to put on his hands."

Schroeder augmented that with plastic bags around his feet, but he was in jeans and a light jacket. If he didn't find help by dark, he knew he might not last the night.

They said their goodbyes.

"It had to be a life-and-death situation to get him to tell me he loves me," DeGrace said jokingly.

Uphill, through 2 or 3 feet of snow, Schroeder felt like he was walking through sand, he said. He hiked about five hours before he found a hill where DeGrace's phone picked up a signal.

He dialed 911.

"I started crying," he said. "When I heard the helicopter, I started crying again."

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá, (916) 321-1987.

• Read more articles by Carlos Alcalá