"Gary" wrote in message
news:Bppqf.167172$Gd6.89956@pd7tw3no...
Maxprop wrote:
"Joe" wrote in message
oups.com...

DSK wrote:

Joe wrote:

Dangerious? or a blessing?


I've read the theory that the electrical discharge reduces
the chance of being struck by lightning.... don't know if
that's true.


I've read that it is a precurser to lighting jumping up


I'd tend to agree. Brief story: my wife, brother, sis-in-law and I were
standing on the top of Mt. Evans in Colorado some years back. Beautiful
day, but ominous clouds were rolling in. Soon it was overcast and we
began to hear thunder from about 50 miles away. As we watched the cell
approach we began to notice that the rocks around us were emanating a
sound similar to frying bacon. Gradually the volume increased until it
sounded more like an electrical crackle. Also noted was that our hair
was beginning to stand away from our heads. Ignorant as we were up to
that point, we finally got the message and beat a very hasty retreat to
lower ground. About 15 seconds later a deafening bolt of lightning
struck the area in which we had been standing. Back at the
restaurant/tourist trap at the end of the access road, we told one of the
people who worked there about our experience. She told us that during
storms at night (she and others lived in the dorm up there at 14,000+
ft.) the workers could see the rocks glowing a subtle blue in the minutes
before a lightning strike. A scientist working at the high-altitude
research adjacent to the restaurant told her it was St. Elmo's Fire. The
following seems to lend some credence to that.

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weathe...nts/stelmo.htm

Max
I had a similar experience on top of Pike's Peak. But after the bolt of
lightening there was one guy dead. There is a place up on Pike's called
the Devils Playground where you can watch the electrical activity jump
from rock to rock.

Are you a Fourteener bagger? My wife and I have climbed about 15 of them.
Most had significant electrical activity and we always try to be on our
way down well before noon.

We did 32 Fourteeners before moving out of Colorado, including Elbert,
Massive, and Harvard. Our intent was to do them all, but we ran out of
time. Oddly enough we only experienced electrical activity on Evans and
Uncompahgre. On Umcompahgre we saw a teen get struck and killed. He was
fascinated by his long hair standing straight out from his head. We yelled
at him to get the *%&$*& off the peak, but he just ignored us. We did
Gray's and Torrey's in the snow, same day as most folks do. I was a pro ski
patrolman at Breckenridge at the time, and part of our training was
mountaineering, which included climbing and skiing crud in untouched
snowfields. We climbed three Fourteeners to their peaks during our
training.

When were you there? Or do you still live in CO?

Max