Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Sept 4 Trip Report - Terrifying Thunder

I hiked Whitney yesterday (Sept 4th) with my buddy John. This summit marked my 9th consecutive year that I have summited. At 49 years of age, I am quite proud of this and it has become a personal goal for each year. Yesterday's summit was my most exciting MW adventure to date. Here's a brief recap, along with a question:

I have found over the years that acclimation is critical to success. To ensure proper acclimation we drove up to Tuolumne Meadows and hiked in the high Sierra's for three days. We spent one night at Vogelsang camp (10K'). After sleeping 3 nights at TM and one night at Mammoth (all at >8000') we spent 1 night at the portal. We were ready to go.

We started on the trail at 4:00 am sharp. My bag weighed in at 8 lbs, and John's was just under 15 lbs. We both felt great. As we hiked past Lone Pine Lake and Mirror Lake we could see that the sky was filled with clouds. Arriving at Trail Camp after 3 hours of hiking we munched on some snacks and pumped water to fill our 100 ounce water bladders for the long hike to the summit and back. I remarked to John that I had never seen Trail Camp to be more absent of wind. It was absolutely still and not cold at all.

We marched up the switchbacks, constantly watching the weather. The weather seemed to change every 10 minutes. Clouds would move in and we commented that we would be happy to just make it to Trail Crest, then the winds aloft would blow the clouds out and you could see blue skies forever. Eventually the trudgery of the switchbacks gave way to reaching beautiful Trail Crest. We took pictures and quickly mushed on toward the summit. We both felt great.

We walked across the long traverse toward the summit, again constantly keeping an eye on the sky. Clouds would come and go, but overall the sky was blue. Eventually we got to the base of the peak and we made the right turn to head up to the actual summit. We both commented on the way up how great we felt and how our days of acclimation had paid off. To the south and west you could see the sky darkening, but the sky ahead was blue. We quickly walked up the trail and we were surprised to see only a handful of people on the summit. I signed the book and we started taking pictures. In the course of no more than 3-4 minutes the weather suddenly began to change for the worse. The dark clouds on the horizon were now on the summit. We decided to forgo our lunch and head down. Snow and fine hail began to fall and the temperature dropped rapidly.

At this point there were about 5 people on the summit. As I began to walk down, a huge and thunderous bang of thunder hit the summit. I began running down the trail to get off the summit. Running for my life I could feel the air filling with electricity, a second even louder bang of thunder struck the summit. (I did not see the lightning bolt itself.) I raced as fast I could possibly run to get off the summit itself. My buddy, a minute behind me, tossed his aluminum hiking poles and began running for his life. Before we could get 1/4 mile down the hill a third bang of thunder hit the summit. These 5 minutes of running off the summit were the most terrifying minutes of my life. I was in disbelief that as I ran DOWN the trail, other hikers were still coming UP the hill - directly toward the hits.

I ran as long as I could until I felt some safety in being off the peak. I knew I was hours from being "safe" but I found great comfort in being off the peak itself. We both walked as quickly as we could to cover the miles of trail on the long traverse back to Trail Crest. This portion of the trail was not extremely slippery as snow and hail covered the trail. (My buddy was handicapped by the fact that he no longer had his poles!) We encountered lots of people that still marched toward the peak. The weather continued to change every 10-15 minutes. We walked through periods of hail, snow, sunshine, and eventually rain down low. (Fortunately we had clothes for all of these scenarios.)

After 11 long hours we finally reached the trail head. We spoke with a girl from Missouri who had reached the summit just minutes after we did. She also felt the electricity in the air on the summit and she felt lucky to get down safely as well. She remarked that she had no idea what she was supposed to do when the thunder and lightning hit.

My question: when lightning strikes on the summit peak - what is the safest course of action? Lay on the ground, run off the summit, get inside the hut?

The biggest lesson I learned yesterday is how quickly the weather can change.

One ironic twist - for some strange and unknown reason I set my alarm for 2:45 am. (This is 15 minutes earlier than the 3:00 am that my buddy and I had discussed.) This allowed us to get up on the peak 15 minutes earlier. If we had left 15 minutes later that morning, we would not have summited. There is no way I would have gone up that last ascent with thunder and lightning directly on the peak itself.

It was the scariest moment of my life.

hikerneil

I've seen that many times - the lightning gets ugly, but those who have not summitted seem to be in a mindset that "it's not bad, it will blow by, it's not going to hit me" while I am in a "let's get the heck off this rock before we all get fried" mode.

Last time was this July when I came down with my kids from Trail Crest. It was maybe 10:30am when we got to Trail Crest and the weather pattern was headed towards ugly, so we skipped the summit and went down the switchbacks. By 11:30 the lightning began up on top, but nobody coming up was turning back. We met about 50 hikers, most of them in t-shirs with a water bottle in their hand, and hell-bent to make the summit that day, while we were racing down, hauling full Muir Trail packs and geared-up for the worst conditions. We got pummeled by hail and torrential rain twice on the way down to the Portal. No idea how everyone above us survived that day, but I am certain we were warmer than most of them, and definitely safer.

Darwin definitely is hard at work up there.

I was on the summit of Mt. Russell yesterday morning. We saw the dark storm cell headed your direction from the south and we got out of there as fast as we could.

The problem with the Main Mt. Whitney Trail is how long you are exposed to very high altitude. There isn't a whole lot you can do except watch the weather and when you see dark ominous clouds headed your way turn around and get to lower elevation as quickly as you can.

Dear Neil,

I probably passed you on the trail coming down yesterday morning. Yes, I sensed the bad weather coming and bailed early, but for other reasons and will start a new thread on that subject. I took pictures of the moon setting behind Wotan's Throne, the clouds were swirling across the moon like something out of a horror movie, basically looked like smoke from a forest fire, then the sky would clear. I figured it was freezing wind up higher and I didn't bring the necessary equipment. With such instability, I figured it ws 100% bad weather later.

That's a great photo Kurt, with a perspective on Whitney that I've not seen before. Can you say with any accuracy how much time it took from fair skies to this very ominous sky? There's no doubt in my mind I would turn around with this sky.

Jim

The clouds were coming and going all morning from the south. We spent about a half hour on the summit of Mt. Russell so my best guess is we had about 30 minutes of warning from our vantage point. From Whitney you would have had more warning than this.

Having been through thunderstorms at altitude which reminded me of artillery or mortar barrages, I researched what to do.

First, more people are killed by ground effect than direct hits. Stay out of caves away from overhangs. Second, get away from the highest object around - 45 feet away from a 45 foot high object, 80 feet away from an 80 foot object, etc.

Sit or sqaut on every bit of insulating material you have. Pad, sleeping bag, jackets, etc. Cover yourself with a poncho to stay dry. Stay away from the aluminum pack frames or stays.

Wait it out.

And if someone is hit by lightning, do the same things you would do for someone who had drowned.

Best of luck. I pray whatever God may do to never go through another.

Thanks Kurt. That's helpful information for my upcoming days on the mountain.

"Second, get away from the highest object around - 45 feet away from a 45 foot high object, 80 feet away from an 80 foot object, etc."

14,497 feet away from a 14,497 foot object?

<sorry, couldn't resist>

"14,497 feet away from a 14,497 object?" With all due respect, I'd have to say that is one helluva good idea. In fact, I'd go for 14.497 MILES away.

:-)

What a difference a day makes. Taken Saturday morning:

I keep reading and hearing this one, but still never fully understanding of it. Is this two fold? as in 1) stay out of caves and 2) stay away from overhangs?

It seems so natural to head to a cave or an overhang.

I was on the "sand hill" coming up from crabtree / upper crabtree lake and we had some weather coming at us. About the only thing arund were some large overhangs, etc. What to do?

Mt. Russell summit self-portrait at about 10:45. Whitney should be seen in the background. You can see the snowflakes coming down.



GigaMike heading off of the summit of Mt. Russell. All of these ledges were snow-free 15 minutes earlier.



Kurt Wedberg finishing up belaying his clients down the South Face, Right Side.

It was our good fortune that Kurt had a group climbing down from the summit (I thought I heard Kurt's voice as we tagged the East Summit.) as we were finishing off the climb. We all agreed that under the current conditions, a bail-off on the South Face, Right Side would be the wise choice. It added to our confidence in a safe descent having him there!