I almost gained first-hand knowledge of what it's like to be a lightning rod

Day one of my little two day scrambling/camping trip and it was a doosey! My plan was to pound-off Sunwapta Peak, Tangle Ridge, and if time and my energy level permitted, Little Hector or Nigel Peak. After quickly setting up Mark's tent at the Columbia Icefields campground, I drove north to Sunwapta Peak - a technically easy, but intensely long and grueling scramble. Since the weather forecast was "mainly sunny" with zero percent chance of precipitation, it seemed logical to do the scramble with the best view and most elevation gain. I know I complain about weather forecasts often, but this one was off the Richter scale! I guess the hour of steady rain on ascent and the snowstorm that pounded me at the summit don't count as precipitation!!

Throughout, the weather was all over the map - sunny for the first hour, rain for the next with heavy cloud cover, and sunny again almost to the summit. As I approached the summit cairn (in a state of sheer relief), I turned to the west to see low-lying, dark clouds barreling towards me. Then, I suddenly heard this constant humming sound right behind me. It took me about 15 seconds to figure out that it was my ice axe being charged with electricity from the oncoming storm. I quickly took it off my backpack and threw it behind the large cairn/wind-shelter at the summit. One minute later, I was violently pounded by snow and high winds. Visibility was cut down to about 15 meters and because I didn't want to descend in the storm, I took shelter behind the cairn.

The real "fun?" started about ten minutes later, when I heard the same humming sound very close by. Unfortunately, it wasn't coming from my ice axe this time - it was coming from me!! My hair started to stand on end and I could feel a tingling sensation all over my head. Needless to say, I panicked - I mean what the heck do you do when you think you're about to be fried by a bolt of lightning - and at my present elevation of almost 11,000 feet, that bolt didn't have far to travel! I started running down the mountain, leaving all my equipment behind (the last things I felt I needed to be holding were a couple of metal hiking poles and an ice axe!). About 50 m down I just threw myself to the ground and laid down flat. I don't know why I did this, but the humming sound went away almost immediately. Ten minutes past and the snow and high winds continued. I was freezing cold and each time I stood up the humming sound would start again - you've never seen anyone hit the deck so fast as I did on the side of that mountain!

Finally, the sun mercifully broke through the clouds and as quickly as it came, the storm went, continuing its journey east (probably to fry some other poor sucker on another mountain!). I stumbled back to the summit, said a couple of prayers, took some pictures, gathered my things, and started down. Unfortunately, the summit view wasn't all it could have been (cloudy to the west), but nevertheless I was extremely thankful to get any view at all and even more thankful that I was still around to see it.

The descent was very easy, taking only half the time of the ascent. I posted a very respectable time of 5 hours, 15 minutes round-trip. Overall, an eventful day to say the least and now I know where to go if I ever want to "recharge my batteries' - lame joke, I know!!

    
The gentle but long ascent slope of Sunwapta Peak, as seen from Tangle Ridge

Almost at the summit; the view to the west; Mount Smythe is the pointed peak right of center

Looking southwest at Athabasca and Andromeda (to the left); the sky darkens!

The storm approaches; about 2 minutes after this picture was taken, I thought I about to become a human lightning-rod