Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Lightning at Trail Camp

Lightning season is not far off and I have a question that my group was debating ahead of our overnight hike in July. We know all about the dangers of being above the switchbacks when there is lightning around, however, how dangerous is it to be at trail camp during a bad electrical storm? Does the fact you are above the tree line mean you are very exposed or do surrounding peaks divert most of the strikes?

What to do if you are doing an overnighter and are staying at trail camp when a thunder storm unexpectedly moves in - hypothetically say at 7.00 in the evening?

Do you stay put in your tent/bivy and wait the storm out or do you pack your bags and head for lower ground post haste - even all the way back to the portal?

Most of the lightning strikes are on the summit and the crest line. You are reasonably safe at Trail Camp. I don't recall anyone reporting a strike at Trail Camp or Outpost, although obviously it could happen.

I've been caught in horrific lightning storms deeper in the Sierras, with lightning all around me in deep forest. At night, the safest thing is to stay put, and in the forest, have your tent or bivy away from trees to minimize the lightning-rod effect and to avoid tree-rain (drips) after the storm passes.

Obviously, if you see a bad storm coming, and you have time to pack up and get down, that could be safer, but the likelihood of a strike at Trail Camp and Outpost, in my opinion, is low.

We sat out a typical afternoon thunderstorm at Trail Camp back in 2001. (Trip report under the "highpointing" pulldown on my WWW site) We had camped there the night before, gotten up early and hit the summit by about 10:30 or so. We were headed back down as the skies darkened and were hailed on between the summit and Trail Crest. It rained for several hours and there were some spectacular lightning strikes on the ridges around us as we waited it out in our tent. Nothing seemed to strike close down to Trail Camp...always on the ridges above it.

I've also camped through some pretty spectacular t-storms here in the midwest (MO). I try to avoid the ridgelines, exposed locations and locations around isolated tall trees.

I would feel reasonably secure at most of the tent sites around Trail Camp.

The last two summers I was in my tent at Trail Camp during thunder storms. The bolts seemed to hit only the high ridges and beyond. I felt very secure and enjoyed hearing the thunder.