From the Editor – Lightening Striking Again

by Mike Rosso
“This won’t last long.”
My hiking pal David LaVercombe and I had just taken refuge underneath a cluster of fragrant spruce trees as the storm raged around us. We were about three miles up Greens Creek Trail when we first heard the thunder. Then came the raindrops – cool and refreshing at first, then the inevitable roar as the skies burst wide open. Now we had to shout to be heard.
The violent cracks of lightning were becoming more frequent above us up on the ridge of the Continental Divide, but we were relatively cozy in our temporary shelter – we had raincoats, we had snacks.
Forty-five minutes later we were still huddling under those trees, literally hugging the trunks, as the storm showed no sign of abating. We saw several mountain bikers racing down the trail, drenched from the deluge they’d just ridden through. Occasionally, things would quiet down and we’d strap on our daypacks, only to hear another clap of thunder and witness more downpour, keeping us hostage in our feeble shelter. Fortunately, Dave is an interesting fellow and was pleasant company as we waited out the storm. We kept seeing traces of blue in the sky, but those were fleeting.
Finally the noise level began to abate to the point that we could hear the nearby creek over the rain. We hit the muddy trail and began the descent, wading through and skirting brown puddles left in the storm’s aftermath. At one point, a very soggy but determined young woman came racing down the trail on her bike. We parted to let her pass, and I couldn’t help but notice the cute nose ring on her damp and muddy face. She forced a smile as she glided by, continuing after her companions, focused intently perhaps on that beer she would eventually share with them at the Elevation Brewery.
One of the few redeeming virtues of being stuck in the trees, miles from your car, with relentless lightning striking all around you, is the requirement to remain still – to not move. How often in our daily lives do we actually do that? For me, it’s hard to sit still. There are always places to go, people to see, coffee to be sipped, weeds to pull. For that hour or so, we were at the mercy of “Mama” – as I like to refer to Mother Nature – and Mama wasn’t going to let us leave those mountains till she deemed it so.
The following week I read about back-to-back lightning deaths that occurred in Rocky Mountain National Park on two consecutive days. A woman from Ohio and a man from Nebraska both perished while hiking along Trail Ridge Road. Reading about those certainly gave me pause, but I’ve hiked in enough electrical storms in the Rockies to know where to take shelter when lightning is about.
A fat lot of good that did me last week, as a presumably short bike ride on the outskirts of town again had me huddling under a tree, as two storm systems I thought I could beat collided over town, bringing another lengthy rainstorm accompanied by the inevitable lightning and thunder.
This time I had no raincoat, no snacks, no company and was wearing only cotton, which was already sodden. On top of that, the one item I did have with me, besides my bike, was a brand new phone I’d just purchased the day before. Great, I thought. If I decide to ride the storm out, I’ll fry this overpriced and uninsured device. So I remained under that Siberian elm, thinking about the column I was originally going to write this month. It concerned all the bad news currently going on around the world: from the invasion by Israel of the Gaza Strip, to the downing of a passenger jet by presumed Ukrainian (Russian) separatists.
No, I thought, maybe I’ll write about standing under this tree, in the rain, watching the occasional car full of teens joyriding at high speed along the railroad tracks. I’ll write about how, if my fate is to leave this planet at the receiving end of a bolt of lightning, so be it. That will have been Mama’s plan for me all along.