Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Backcountry Lightning Avoidance

Here is an interesting paper posted on an Lassen National Park NPS website.

It describes the "lightning position", discusses the best places to be (and not to be) in the backcountry. The section titled "Reducing Lightning Risk In The Backcountry" on pages 4-6 are most important to hikers.

It is a 9-page PDF file:

Backcountry Lightning Risk Management
by John Gookin
Curriculum & Research Manager, The National Outdoor Leadership School

This topic, and lightning at the Whitney summit was discussed well in this thread three years ago:

Lightning: Thunderstorms on Whitney?

Hey good stuff,

I recently had a close call on Langley with a friend of mine... We pushed through some monsoon rain to Langley's summit and we summitted in a patch of blue with clouds surrounding us (we were on top around 1pm hadn't heard a single peal of thunder all day). We were heating up some ramen and oatmeal (to stave off the cold chill that had accompanied several hours of endless rain) when lightning struck the north face a little over 100 feet below the summit plateau, and less than 100 yards away.

The thunder rocked us to the core, I have never been so awe-struck and terrified in my life.

We shoveled our gear into our packs and ran down as fast as possible(possibly squealing as we went). In reality we were probably fine seeing as the bottom of the cloud was below us... but still...