Walking Well: Lightning

Grand Canyon Hiking Photo Gallery

advertisement

Lightning bolts during thunderstorms are real and frightening threats to hikers, especially above treeline. Fortunately these strikes of hikers are rare. Although lightning strikes hundreds of people in the US and kills about 300 each year, I know of only one lightning-caused death on the AT (reported by Dr. Wm. Gordge in the Appalachian Trailway News in 1978 as occurring several years previously).

Lightning concerns me because I have had two close calls. In 1992 at Siler's Bald shelter in the Smokies, lightning struck a tree about 30 feet from the shelter where we were huddled for protection just as a hiker went out to collect rainwater from some dishes he had set out. He was not hurt, but we were all shaken by the close call. The bark was completely peeled off the tree. As a scout in 1938 at Camp Kiwanis near Chicago, I was knocked to the ground by what felt like a blow on the back by a baseball bat while in an old wall tent during a storm. Lightning had struck a tree about six feet from where I was standing. Outside we saw a tree debarked and smoking. As a result of these close calls I do not consider myself immune; indeed, I diligently take preventive action in storms.

Lightning can indeed strike twice, as we learn from the experience of Roy Sullivan, a Shenandoah Park ranger with more than 30 years' service, who at last count had been struck by lightning seven times! In his first encounter he heard a bang and saw a light flash. The bolt struck his shoulder and ran down his arm, hand, and leg. It hurled him to the ground and blasted an 18-inch-deep hole in the ground at his feet. It left him weak and limping, with a numb hand. Later he was struck in a fire tower by a bolt that seared a half-inch stripe down his leg and knocked off his big toenail. Then he was struck and knocked unconscious with burned-off eyebrows while riding in a car on the Skyline Drive. He has also been knocked down and had his hair burned off twice.

When an approaching cold front meets a warm front the resulting turbulence builds up extremely large charges in the clouds in an electrical storm. Most discharges occur between clouds but cloud-to-ground charges are what cause the damage. Lightning is extremely variable but may generate 300,000 amperes of current and a billion volts of electrical potential. This is awesome power.