Last week we were riding the West Rim, thunder to the south.  Then lightning struck somewhere close.  A spark jumped from the bike to my face.  That was as close as I've been to being struck.  Yesterday on the South Kaibab thunder to the south.  With our West Rim adventure in mind, we scuttled out as fast as possible.  One of my friends tells me of huddling under an overhang on the SK when lightning struck the ridge.  The whole group was lifted into the air and deposited a few feet further down the hill.

Back in college, our first hike was always to Sunset Crater, Wupatki, and the Little Colorado.  The second weekend was Humphries, the highest peak in the state.  Coincidentally rated 14 on a scale of 15 for lightning danger.  Coincidentally during monsoon season, when it rains almost every afternoon.

I climbed the darn mountain three times before I made it to the top.  A storm always moved in, and we boogied off the ridge as fast as our little boots would carry us.

One year we were on the ridge, and a storm moved in. On schedule.  I reversed direction and told everyone to get down posthaste.  Instead they kept going.

They took photos of themselves on the summit with their hair standing straight on end.  Sparks flying from their pack frames.  When they got down one young lady looked straight at me and said, "Who was that bitch that told us to come down?"  Needless to say we did not bond in ensuing

years.

The problem is, of course, that usually one gets away with it.  The lightning doesn't strike the ridge.  The flash flood doesn't show up.  The rim to river to rim hikers make it out by midnight, but they make it out.  Sometimes one does not make it.

A climber once said, "It is better to turn around ten times to early than once too late".  On K2 in 2008, eleven climbers turned around too late.  This summer two hikers kept going until they died.

I would like it if someone, someday, said, "Well, I guess we didn't have to turn around.  But I understand why you warned us to."  Instead of "There was nothing dangerous up there!  Why did you pull out out early?"

And then there was the time in Colorado when I was co-leading a backpack for a group of teens from a local camp.  This was a religious camp, one of the sects which believes that disease is not caused by bacteria, and bad things only happen to those with bad attitudes.  We were crossing Music Pass at 12,000 feet tied together with a climbing rope as part of a "trust" exercise.  Lighning was striking the peaks around us.  One of the kids looked at me curiously and said, "Slim, your hair is standing on end."

"Really?  Ha, ha. Drop that rope and run like hell".

When we got down I was the one that caught hell. Because I had spoiled the trust exercise.  I lacked faith. Nothing would have happened if I hadn't had a bad attitude.  "Well," quoth I, "My attitude was bad enough to fry the whole mountain.  So we ran."