Struck by lightning on the Aiguille du Chardonnet - 12546ft (3824m) | ||||||||||||
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Introduction | ||||||||||||
-Hailstorm | ||||||||||||
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Another short scramble took us down to a wide ledge with a wall above and a bigger wall below. The wall below formed the side of a broad steep gully that headed out of sight by a big rock cliff in the direction of the shoulder. The wall below us was too steep to down climb, we would need another abseil. BANG, FLASH. Shit, my whole body jumped. Unbelievably close, lightning must have hit something just above us. The flash and the noise came at the same time. There was no deep rumbling just a single sharp explosion in the rocks. That was too close. I looked to JC. He stared back at me, deep concern written all over his face and just shook his head side to side a couple of times. I started the business of sorting the ropes out again with as much speed as I could manage. JC had moved to the other end of the ledge and was fiddling with his gear. He removed his axes and crampons and placed them on the ground. He then moved away from them back towards me. BAANNG, FLAASH. Christ, another huge blast from the mist nearby. The storm was right on top of us. Again the light and the noise were coincident. I put my ice-axe down so I could sort the ropes more quickly. The heavens opened and hail started to pour down on us. It bounced off our helmets and clothes. It quickly began to carpet the rocks and snow around our feet. I've never seen so much hail fall so quickly. So intense was the downpour I expected it to stop as quickly as it started. But it didn't stop. A few minutes later it may even have intensified. The temperature was dropping. CRASHH, FLAASH. Briefly all the mist above us glowed brightly as yet another thunderbolt piled into the ridge above us. Thank god we weren't still on the ridge crest. The lightning strikes were going off like bombs, just out of our sight in the cloud. I didn't think we could survive a direct hit from one of them. The storm was getting bad and it was very frightening to be so near to the lightning. The crashes were SO close. The acrid smell of my burnt hair was a constant reminder that we could be hit. Every explosion sent another fearful burst of adrenalin coursing round my body. I shivered and looked around. The hail collected by the mountain was now flowing down to us like water. Pouring off the cliffs around us were great streams channeled by the gullies and cracks in the rocks. The sheer volume of hail was astonishing and it grew deeper around our feet as we watched. I turned my attention back to our abseil. As I prepared a rope coil one of the Dutch came over to help. Slightly ridiculously, I felt embarassed that I was putting extra knots in the two ropes to tie them together. He was obviously the more experienced of the Dutch pair and I wondered what he thought. I was glad that he appeared unbothered by my extra knots and I felt that he was just pleased to be making downward progress. His partner remained immobile on the ledge. I felt that he was having the toughest time mentally. Earlier on the mountain, he'd seemed intimidated and scared by the climbing, probably more than me. He had been very slow as we made our way down through the cliffs and I doubt he would have fared well alone. As I prepared our next abseil he looked utterly blank and stared bleakly at the couloir below. We spotted another bunch of old abseil anchors at the end of the ledge and again I yanked on them as hard as I could to test them. Some of the old rope slings pulled out in bits but there were at least a couple of newer looking slings. Once again I threaded the rope through all the slings and threw the two coils down the wall and into the gully below. It was good to see the ropes fall safely into the gully but we still couldn't see the snowy shoulder. I longed to know for sure that we were on our way off the mountain. I bent down to pick up my ice axe to stow it for the abseil but I couldn't see it anywhere. It had become buried under the carpet of hail. I had to sweep my hand to and fro through the thousands of icy granules to find it. Once I'd got my axe I set off down the ropes. It was an easier abseil than the first and I was soon below the wall walking backwards down the gully bed on the ropes. I stopped to check out the view behind me. The gully continued to drop steeply away with sheer cliffs on both sides. However the cliffs on the right petered out and below them I caught glimpses of snow. It must be the shoulder. The direct continuation of the gully dropped well below where the shoulder seemed to be. So we abseiled across the right hand wall of the gully as we descended. We moved around the base of the bounding cliffs and at last we saw the shoulder. | ||||||||||||
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