Thunderstorms

[Alpinum]

Amazing how much easier it is becoming to stay safe wherever we are.
I can think of quite a few trips where this, a friend with www access and your 2 way sat comm contact can provide helpful information.

The tech is there. It's up to us to use it if we want...

[kvragu]

Really cool comments, I want to reply more thoughtfully, but here's the xkcd I found instructive a while back:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/16/

Also, the recent backpackinglight podcast episode was about exactly about this:
https://backpackinglight.com/episode-85 ... anagement/

A short from bpl guy:
https://youtu.be/whY6UA1SpdY

[psling]

I've been following this thread wondering whether to post or not so here goes.
I was first responder at a lightening strike once. Camp site on the Welsh Borders near Hay on Wye, end of August and thunderstorms had been circling all afternoon/evening. About 1.00 in the morning I was woken by unusual sounds outside and went out to find a guy staggering around and speaking incoherently. I thought he was drunk! Finally understood what he was trying to say... "I've been struck by lightning"
Immediately called for an ambulance whilst I checked him over. Got him stripped down to follow the burn trace from a shoulder, across his chest, down his leg to a big burns blister on his big toe.
Just did what I would do for burns, got a bowl of cold water and a flannel and dowsed the burn track until the ambulance arrived. He was taken to Abergavenny Hospital and then transferred to Morriston (Swansea) burns unit where he was treated and visited by a number of other doctors to 'see the man that survived the lightning strike '!
He had been in a single pole tent and his earpiece was lying against the pole and under his shoulder (luckily not still in his ear!). The clear burn track was visible from shoulder to toe. His sleeping bag had a burnt hole in it where his toe was.
He survived, we've kind of kept in touch since although this was several years ago now and he's lived on the story ever since !

[Charliecres]

Yikes! I got caught in a storm while crossing the flanks of Cadair Idris a few weeks back. It was close enough at one point that I dumped the bike and adopted the position. Probably about as much good as praying, I imagine, but it made me feel slightly better.

[Alpinum]

Probably about as much good as praying, I imagine, but it made me feel slightly better.

What helps me most is to think how I'll be laughing about it in retrospective. This always makes me happy and puts me in a mindset to give not too many sh*ts. I guess with a sort of fatalism (you made the wrong choices, so deal with the consequences), panic moves away and urgency can be assessed with the right focus.

[frogatthefarriers]

Yikes! I got caught in a storm while crossing the flanks of Cadair Idris a few weeks back. It was close enough at one point that I dumped the bike and adopted the position.

Hmm! That’s got me thinking, that given that metal or carbon are good conductors, a bike frame could act as a lightning rod and attract a discharge away from you. So if no better options are available, how about standing it upside down so the metal will have contact with the ground and make a good earth, then make yourself lower than it (sit/lie down). It couldn’t hurt, could it? Just don’t expect the tyres to still be up.

[Alpinum]

So if no better options are available, how about standing it upside down so the metal will have contact with the ground and make a good earth, then make yourself lower than it (sit/lie down). It couldn’t hurt, could it?

Same thinking pattern here.
Used to do that (where possible) with the climbing gear.

When I rode in the Puna de Atacama I had a couple of evenings with big electrical storms. During one I had no other option, despite riding further and further, to hide beneath some rocks at the edge of a salar. As the storm approached I counted seconds between lightning and thunder, ready to run across the open landscape with all my metal stuff (tent poles, ice axe, crampons, kitchen and bike), pile it up 300 m away go back and hide beneath the (hopefully less conductive) rocks. The storm held a distance of about 4 km. Next day the weather still seemed labile, so I reluctanly skipped an acclimatisation night ontop of a pass to find good shelter lower down. Was the right decision. All hell broke loose.