You will note that regading lightning in Anchorage I said "Not as nearly as often as other places in the world, but we do get it."

I once had a mildly scary experience with a thunderstorm up in the Talkeetna Range, NE of Anchorage. But by far the closest calls I've had with lightning were in the Oregon Cascades.

Once in my misspent youth a girlfriend and I were hiking on the PCT north of Mt Jefferson. A thunderstorm moved in but we were down in the flats below Mt Jefferson, so we weren't too concerned. Suddenly bolt struck a tree about 30 feet ahead of us. It blew big strips of bark off the side of the tree like shrapnel. The top of the tree burst into flame. The trail we were on went right past the tree, close enough to touch, and if the lighting had hit few seconds later we would have been right next to the tree.

Another time a buddy and I were climbing the West Ridge of Mt Washington (about a 5.7 route on scary loose volcanic rock) when a thunderstorm started to move in. We were very near the top and opted to quickly finish the route and descend the easy standard route. Just as we got to the summit, our hair started to stand on end from static electricity. We made the fasted rappel in history to get off that thing!

In later years I did some climbing around Boulder Colorado. There you could about set your watch by the afternoon thunderstorms. You just timed your climb to be up and back down before then.