Eleven years after the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens, in the summer of 1991, I received a call from a good friend of mine, Curt, who said he was planning to get a group together to climb to the top of Mt St Helens and he asked if I was interested! You bet I was!

Our family had, however, just grown by one member. Our daughter was born in late May of that year, so I tentatively floated the idea of the climb to my wife. She is ever-supportive of my excursions and she gave her assent to this trip with the admonition to “be careful” – which I heartily acknowledged.

Curt scheduled the climb for late summer, coincidentally on my birthday!

When the day of the climb came, Curt called to let me know that the climb was still on, but that he was ill and unable to go. We would, however, all meet after the climb at a local pub in Beaverton, Oregon to share our stories.

Our group met at the trailhead and after viewing our objective, commenced the climb.

Getting to the top of Mt St Helens is not a “technical” climb, meaning that it doesn’t require ropes or other climbing gear. Instead, it is a long, arduous hike to the top that requires some scrambling over boulders of various sizes.

Here is a photo of our climbing group on a stack of those boulders, just below the final ascent to the top of the mountain.

The final ascent to the top of Mt. Saint Helens is a slog up a substantial field of loose volcanic cinders about 3/4 of an inch in size. These cinders are stacked at the maximum angle that rocks that size can be stacked without falling down and so, each step one takes on them results in sliding back about 3/4 of a step.

During this final ascent to the top, there is little to do but take a step, breathe deeply and often, and look up at the top of the mountain.

You may have heard the adage that “mountains make their own weather”; this is because as winds push warmer, moister air up the side of a mountain the air gets colder and moisture condenses into clouds, sometimes progressing into rain or snow.

As we slogged up the cinders that day, we noted a clear sky, but over the top of the mountain, a small cloud was rolling. There was no rain, or snow or anything else – just a small rolling cloud.

I was one of the first four of our climbing group to get to the top of the mountain. We took a few minutes to take photos.

We then sat down opened our packs and pulled out our lunches. In my case, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

As I sat on top of the mountain that day, all of a sudden every hair on my body stood up on end and I heard a high pitched whining/buzzing sound of increasing frequency until …

POW

Whenever I had previously heard of someone being struck by lightning they seem to have a common thread – prior to the strike, one’s hair stands up on end and one often hears a buzzing sound. In my hubris, I reasoned that if I ever experienced those sensations, I would immediately recognize what was happening and I would take evasive action. The truth is that once you experience those sensations the reality of the strike is already cast and is unavoidable.

It took a few seconds for me to register what had just happened and I took a millisecond long solace that my mind was actually still able to register what had just happened. The four of us looked at each other, grabbed our packs and jumped down the slope of the mountain that we had just climbed up.

Once down the slope a ways, we glanced up and noted that the small cloud that had been hovering and rolling over the top of the mountain all morning during our climb had now completely dissipated. We waited a few minutes to see if the cloud re-formed or if anything else would happen, then we slogged back up to the top with the rest of our climbing party.

The members of our climbing party who were looking up at us as they climbed told us that a large bolt of lightning came out of the small cloud and passed over our heads, striking the rim of the crater to our east.

As the main bolt passed over our heads, four small fingers of lightning emerged from the main bolt and “touched” each of us on the tops of our heads!

Our group spent about a half hour on top of the mountain with no further incident and we then descended the way we came and headed back to town.

My friend Curt, the organizer of the climb, had recovered from his illness enough that day to make it to our pre-arranged post-climb gathering at the pub. As I walked in the door he exclaimed,

“Tom! Celeste (one of our climbing group) got here just a few minutes ago and told me what happened. I would give anything to be struck by lightning and live to tell about it!”

That is the club I unintentionally joined that day:

Those who have been struck by lightning and lived to tell about it!

As an added bonus, it happened on top of Mt Saint Helens on my birthday – ha!