Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Lightning Danger

I day hiked Whitney last Thursday (Aug 12) for the first time and had a great time. We summited before noon and headed down as dark clouds rolled in. It snowed a little and we heard a lot of thunder. I was amazed at how many people continued the hike toward the summit past Trail Crest dispite the threatening weather. I mentioned to more than one hiker my concerns but most seemed very nonchalant and kept right on going. Personally, I felt very exposed coming down until I passed the "Extreme Danger From Lightning" sign near Trail Crest. If one were to follow the warnings listed on the sign, they all should have been turning back.

I am curious as to how others consider the risk of lightning in deciding whether to abort or not.
I always try to summit before noon to improve my chances as I have been known to get a touch of "summit fever" but it remains a tough judgement call.

I hear thunder, I head down the mountain. Period. I know of too many experienced climbers who did not, or were too close to the summit to turn around, or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and are now no longer with us. I get summit fever like everyone else, but more than reaching the summit, I want to be around to try for another summit another day.

Ill bet statistics would show lightning as being the biggest threat on a mountain. I was on the ridge of Morgan last Sun and a stones throw from the summit. After hearing thunder and the crack of a lightning bolt I was running for lower ground. Does anyone have any stats on injury or death due to lightning at elevation?

On August 12, I was driving down 395 past Whitney after spending some time in Mammoth and Yosemite. Whitney was completely obscured by black clouds; the entire range was blanketed in dark gloom. I said to my husband, "I feel terribly sorry for the people trying to summit today."

I've been past Trail Crest on several occasions when lightning and thunder were present. I always turned back immediately and was always stunned that people just kept ambling up towards the summit, blowing off suggestions they abort their trip. Personally I think they were fools and inexperienced hikers.

Last week there was a terrible hail and lightning storm at Mammoth and I was stuck in the middle of it, 8 miles away from the trailhead, at Purple Lake, above Coldwater Campground. As anyone who has been stuck in a lightning storm will tell you, it is very scary and humbling. Anyone who has been caught in such a situation will always exercise caution when hiking and turn around when there's a significant indication of lightning. It's nothing to fool around with. Nothing is worth your life when hiking and while lightning casualities are relatively uncommon, they still happen to hikers every year.

Last year in Utah an entire family was killed by lightning as they took a break from their hike. I've been caught in lightning storms where the hair literally stands up on your arm and you never forget it.

I was on top of Whitney August 14th at about 11am. As I headed back down a storm rolled in. Luckily we were just ahead of it and only received some minor hail on our way down the swtich backs. As other people noted there were still some who were doggedly moving up.

Let us say that I had been caught inside the thunder storm. What would have been my best option? To move down the trail as quickly as possible or to sit tight and wait for it to pass? It seems like hiking in poor visibility and slick conditions might be pretty dangerous too. Especially between the peak and trail crest continuing down the trail doesn't really gain you much in the way of decreased altitude. I'd just like to hear some peoples thoughts on this.

-end

In the Wilderness classes I have taken, the understood way of handling a storm while on a mountain is to descend, if possible. If you cannot descend, find shelter away from tall trees (okay, few of those on most of Whitney), and make sure you are not the highest point around. If you feel your skin tingle or your hair stand on end, drop to a squat and balance on the balls of your feet (do NOT lay down) to give as little contact to the ground as possible. Ideally, do this on a small rise as opposed to a despression in the hill as the current from the lightning will spread once it hits the ground and will run downward through the ground. Of course, from the time you feel the tingling to the time the lightning strikes is about 2 seconds, so drop where you are. If you need to ride out the storm, crouch on a rise with all metal objects placed away from you.

August 12 was an interesting day to say the least. We had reached the summit of North Palisade at about 9 AM with the weather looking pretty good. By the time we got to Starlight at about 10:30 AM it had deteriorated quickly. Saw some lightning pop to the west just as I reached the summit. We had planned to climb Thunderbolt the same day but decided to retreat and save it for another day. Also got a little snowfall up high. Don't mess with Mother Nature. We did make it back to the car without needing a rain jacket but it looked pretty nasty up high.

I've been on big mountains in thunderstorms (they came very quickly and from the back side of the maountain, so there was no way to avoid). Suffice it to say that it was an experience that I would not want to repeat. One time it was so bad that our ice axes has a glow of static electricity around them. No one got hurt, but it was more luck than skill. In each case, we got down as quickly as possible. One thing to note: once you are in the clouds, as you typically are high on a big mountain, you really have no idea where the lightning is. Each stroke lights up the whole cloud and you can't tell which direction or how far away it is. Lower altitude is your friend.

One time I turned around on Shasta as a huge storm blew in. The next day I climbed and ran into several people who had bivvied on the mountain in the storm. They were scared witless and had a hard time talking coherently about it.

You can tell the direction and distance of lightning in the area by where the thunder comes from and how long it takes for you to begin hearing it after the lightning strike that caused it (even if you can't see the precise stroke itself but only the flash of light resulting from the stroke). I'm not sure why this would be any different in a cloud.

One other note on lightning. It does not necessarily strike the highest object in the area it hits. I have seen a couple of documentaries in the past few years that have disproven the previously held belief that lightning strikes the highest object in an area. Lightning *does*, however, follow the path of least resistance, wherever that happens to lead. Lightning has even been seen coming out of the side of a thunderhead, arcing out and then down and striking some object under a clear blue sky as far as 10 miles away from the storm itself.

CaT

My son and his scout troop are going in the back way from Mineral King. They have been there since Saturday Aug. 13. They should be getting up to the top tomorrow. Does this mean they have been in thunderstorms? I cant seem to find the weather for the mountain..only white mountain, where is that?

thanks.... a mom in Sherman Oaks

CaT - When you are away from the storm, you can see the lightening bolt (and then count to the thunder). It's very different when you are actually inside the thunderstorm. You can't really see the lightening, the entire cloud all around you lights up. In many cases, there is very little time between the lightening and the thunder because it's so close. When that happens, you are too close for comfort!

I got curious about this the other day (Aug 15, while I was nearly swimming back home during a thunderstorm that I was very glad that I wasn't high up on a moutain for.)

I found this great reference in which some of my previous assumptions had to be altered. The basic gist was seek shelter, but not necessarily the same one that you would choose to get out of the rain. (i.e. don't lean your body on the rocks.)

http://www.bootsandblisters.com/2003/104_jan_2003.htm

Interesting stats (unverified) given at <a href="http://www.rockandice.com/accidents/accidents.129.html">http://www.rockandice.com/accidents/accidents.129.html</a>:
<blockquote><em>Number of climbers reportedly struck by lightning in the U.S. between 1951 and 2001: 43

Number of climbers reportedly struck by lightning in the U.S. in 2002: 1</em></blockquote>
That's less than 1 per year, so the odds seem to be against getting hit.

Not that one would want to bet against it...

powergui: That number sounds way too low. According to Yosemite rangers there is someone hit on half dome alone every 2-3 years and there were 3 people hit last year on Grand Teton. There was also sopmeone hit at Lake Tahoe last year in a spring skiing storm. Sounds to me like there is no national people-hit-by-lightening-while-climbing-mountains database.

http://sky-fire.tv/index.cgi/lightning.html#climbers

"Between 1980 and 1991, lightning killed at least 50 people in Colorado - and of these 20 were killed while climbing or hiking."

Sierra Sam - In so many words, you pretty much said what I was trying to say. Whether you see the stroke itself, or are in the clouds and see only the resulting flash (but not the stroke), you can still estimate your distance from the stroke based on how quickly the thunder follows the flash when you're in the clouds.

While it doesn't cover the year 2002, you all should find the map accessed via this link interesting:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/cae/svrwx/lightningdeaths.htm

CaT

So, in other words - yes, lightning is a real danger. Yes, descend if possible. If not, crouch on the balls of your feet with as little contact as possible to the earth (including rocks and rock walls).

DON'T continue to climb. Okay, so lightning doesn't ALWAYS hit the highest point - it does often enough that I don't want to be that point.

Also, I've always found with hiking (and in life in general) I should trust my instincts. If my brain is telling me to descend, I should descend - whether it's due to lightning, AMS, fear of heights, or whatever. We humans actually do have pretty good intuitions, unfortunately, we tend to second guess our intuitions and talk ourselves out of them.

WolfMom - White Mtn is east-northeast of Bishop in a separate mountain range parallel to the Sierra Nevada but to the east; it also creates its own lightning storms. Amazing how nice it is to see lightning from a car, but not on your mtn when you're several miles from it!

Those weren't my numbers and I didn't research further to determine if there was any validity to them.

But I wonder if the lightning thing isn't a bit like the fear-of-giardia myth. Much higher stakes, though, so my strategy for dealing with the risk isn't the same.

The other point worth making on this topic is that you can be a fair distance away from the actual strike and still be hurt. The climbers that died on the Grand Teton last year were rock climbing on a ridge well below the summit. As best the rangers could reconstruct it, the lightening hit at or near the peak, but traveled down the ridge and knocked the climbers off.