Got caught in a surprise storm on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia last fall

I was hiking a section of the AT near Pearisburg, Virginia, about 6 miles from the next shelter. The forecast said scattered clouds, but around 3 PM the sky turned green and the wind picked up hard. I had a rain jacket but no backup plan for lightning, and I was on an exposed ridge with nowhere to duck. A tree not 50 feet from me got hit by a bolt and split right down the middle. I dropped my pack and scrambled downhill into a low thicket, curled up on my sleeping pad to stay off the wet ground. The storm passed in about 20 minutes, but I was shaking and soaked through. Has anyone else dealt with a sudden weather shift on a ridge like that? What do you do when there's no shelter for miles?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer9811mo ago

Tree got hit 50 feet from you? How long did it take to find that thicket?

-2

luna_wright1mo ago

Oh man, my buddy waited like 3 hours before he found a decent thicket lol

fiona_west211mo ago

Yeah but I think your buddy might have been looking in the wrong spots, @luna_wright. Three hours seems really long for a decent thicket. Around here the good ones usually fill up within an hour or two, tops, especially after a storm. Maybe he was being too picky about the brush or didn't want to hike far enough back in.