Camping and Lightning

http://www.theprovince.com/mobile/news/n...4323/story.html

What do you do to keep yourself safe during a storm?

What the NOLA says mimacs what Ive been taught:

*Remember that if you're outdoors are are never really safe
*If camping, hiking, etc., far from a safe vehicle or building, avoid open fields, the top of a hill or a ridge top.
*Stay away from tall, isolated trees or other tall objects. If you are in a forest, stay near a lower stand of trees.
*If you are camping in an open area, set up camp in a valley, ravine or other low area. Remember, a tent offers NO protection from lighting.
*Stay away from water, wet items (such as ropes) and metal objects (such as fences and poles). Water and metal are excellent conductors of electricity. The current from a lightning flash will easily travel for long distance

So camp on high ground to avoid getting flooded out, and camp on lower ground to keep from getting fried by lightning. Got it .

Good reminder bacpacjac. And if you're caught in a relatively open space, like right after a summit:

-sit on your sleeping pad with knees to your chest

-spread out your group

"The current from a lightning strike will easily travel a long distance"

Ah, yes! Many years ago, i was repairing a back country telephone line at Saguaro Nat'l Monument (now Park). I paid no attention whatsoever to a lightning storm playing over a peak a bit over five miles distant; that is, until I got a warning tingle over the line - nothing big, but definitely a shock. i put away my tools until another day.

I have been caught is several lightning storms and "assumed the position - balanced on my toes, making as rounded a profile as possible, with my fingers crossed, hoping I will get through the storm...

Also, many people assume lightning only strikes downward, which isn't true. Lightning can also strike sideways, onto that veranda, or into an open car window.

Sue

A lightning strike can also throw shrapnel.

Back in my misspent youth my girlfriend and I were backpacking in the Cascades. Long story short, a bolt hit a ~2 ft diameter tree not far from us. Big vertical strips of bark and wood about 1-2 inches thick and 3-4 ft long were hurled in all directions. Had one hit either of us they were big and heavy enough to be painful for sure, and possibly to seriously injure. The trail we were on passed close enough to the tree to touch it, had we been a few seconds sooner we would have been right next to the tree when the bolt hit!

The really scary thing was that there was nothing that would have made you expect this tree would be the one to get hit. It was one of hundreds of trees, fairly close together and all about the same height. Since then I've always been paranoid about lightning.

It pays to be lucky, I guess.

Lighting is actually one of the biggest killers in the wilderness. It kills on a average of 7.5 Canadians per year, far more than the 1.4 per year killed by Bears.

It is also very powerful. I came across this tree in a cut block the morning after a very powerful storm in the Rocky Mountain foothills. This popular tree was shattered by lighting and shards were driven 30cm into the ground over 25m away. The man-sized shard I am standing beside was drive over 30cm into solid soil and was one of hundreds scattered around the tree. I could not pull out this shard. I actually kept another smaller shard of this tree just as a reminder of the true power of lighting. I was happy to have been camping in low ground over 2km from this point.

Man, I'm glad I'm not Canadian!

I kid, I kid. Those are impressive photos. I thought those were saplings that got split by lightning, not shards of a tree! Geez!

I live in the lightning strike capital of the US (Tampa Bay area)...with luck you will be able to feel the charge build up (hair on end) as a warning...decrease the surface area of your body by dropping to a squatting position, with head tucked between knees....decrease the contact surface with the ground by rolling to the balls of your feet...

I've been thinking about getting one for a while, but this thread finally gave me the ooomf to buy a lightning detecter. That will at least tell me how much at risk I am.

Pretty cool technology.

some years ago on a canoe trip with a buddy on Brule Lake in Northern Minnesota,in the BWCA canoe park,we had a close strike near our camp.very close,one of those flash-bang strikes.it was a nice day with a storm to the south of us but clear around us.
a few minutes later we saw some smoke just down the shore from the camp and got all the water buckets/cooking pots we had and went down for a look.a big old Cedar had taken the hit and was laying hung up in other trees,the inside was glowing red but nothing was really burning much.we spent the better part of a hour hauling water the 50 or so feet back to the tree and left it dead out.looking around we could see the splinters of wood that were blasted off.i took one with the idea of carving it into a fishing lure but never got around to it--yet--.
for staying safe i do the crouch on the sleeping pad thing in the camp and out on the water get to shore anyplace but in a low swampy area if i can.

CD, you area saint for putting out that fire. Years ago, I spent a summer in the Rincon Mountains (Saguaro Nat'lPark), responding to lightning fires. I got to see a lot of perfectly healthy ponderosa pines reduced to kindling, with splinters flying all over the place. Lightning is nothing to mess around with...

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls/ploutdoor.htm

Figured this might be of some interest to some people (note the sleeping pad part).

Speed..good link,getting on a sleeping pad is one of those last resort sort of things,i have woke up at night to the sound of a storm and just hunkered on mine hoping there were no local hits.
a poster at BWCA.COM told about a close hit that went thru the roots of a pine he was under and even on the mat he was shell shocked for awhile.it's the one thing i worry about out on trips because there is nothing you can really do about it.

look just to the left of the canoe across the bay,you don't need to be on high ground to take that hit.i would not wanted to be in that camp that day.




closer look---