Blahh, blaah. I've spent entire nights in nylon and Goretex tents hunkered just 30 yards from where lightning was striking all night long, hour after hour, so frequently I could read a book. Cheap thrills, that's for sure, and not a bit of static as far as tents or parkas were concerned, but wonderful memories of the dragon roaring so near by. I'd often need to almost instantly set up in the nearest little grove of trees which didn't exhibit any past fire scar marks. Lighting is surprisingly predictable. Kept any metal like the pack or then aluminum Gitzo tripod at a safe distance, but those items otherwise common-sense sheltered.
Oh the lifetime stories I could tell about lightning, including some of its victims! I remember sitting around with the cowboys in the little dining area attached to the kitchen in the pack station I worked for the summer I was sixteen. The water tank was two thousand feet higher up the mountain, with a long galvanized pipeline running down. The wife of the owner had just stepped out of the kitchen when a lightning bolt hit somewhere way up above, and the kitchen sink suddenly exploded, instantly destroying that whole part of the building.
Speak for yourself, but I still have all my hair. None of it has either fallen off or burnt off. I once did encounter four climbers who had just come down from Pingora, a well known pinnacle in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, who were all leaning against a large boulder still looking wild-eyed and terrified, mumbling to themselves with all their hair still standing on end due to the static charge. Fortunately, no burns. They were trying to rappel back down on water-soaked rope, which behaved like an electrical cord, torture-tingling them where their harnesses fit (no elaboration needed), as well as giving them a distinct overall buzz. A clown act couldn't have done it better. I could cite numerous of fatal examples instead, however, if I wanted to.
