Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board lightning..what's the right thing to do?

If you are hiking up from upper crabtree meadow towards gitar lake, mid afternoon during the summer, clouds are building, and you are approaching treeline, it begins to rain softly, and you hear a few rumbles in the not far off distance. what should you do?
all feedback welcome!

The single most important thing you can do is to not go above treeline, as that makes you a potential target.

Other than that - put on your raingear, and wait out the storm. If you have a closed cell pad, then sitting or standing on that may provide some protection should lightning strike nearby.

Not even trying to provide a total answer but if you do get caught in an electrical storm and you're carrying aluminum poles put at least a few yards between you and the poles. I switched to carbon fiber poles primarily because they don't attract or conduct electricity. (They also break, but REI will replace them if they do.)

Stop and hunker down until the storm passes.

Janet,

This very question has been asked here (and thoroughly discussed) several times over the years.

I would suggest doing the following search, using this message board's search feature, which will provide a wealth of information, opinions and experiences in response to your question:

1 - Click the Search link near the top of this page

2 - On the resulting search parameters page:

a - Under Keyword Search Terms (right side of page), type in the word lightning

b - Below that, select In Subject

c - Leave Display Name Search blank

d - Under Date Range, type 3 next to Newer Than, then select Years from the drop-down menu

e - Leave Older Than blank

f - Under Result Format, type 99, and leave blank Show a Preview of Post Body with the Results

The above should bring up every serious lightning-related discussion that has been had here for the past 3 years.

Hope this helps.

CaT