Driving to the trailhead at the Santa Fe Ski area, the dark clouds were building and my thoughts were on anything but the hike ahead. Jeff turned to me and said, “so glad I packed my jacket”. “Oops” I replied, "the sun was shining so brightly when we left this morning that I decided to leave it behind to lighten your backpack”. My intensions were good, I thought. “Oh well”, I countered, “we have our rain poncho’s in our backpacks.” I knew that I had done wrong.
If I am so scared of lightning, why did I continue this steep 3.5 mile journey up the mountain. I kept asking myself the same question but nevertheless, continued up.
About ½ way, it started to rain a little. I dug deep into my backpack looking for my rain poncho. “Oops! (again!). No poncho. I hauled out the emergency blanket that looked like the poncho packet. Said ponchos were still in our suitcase at the Inn. I really had no credibility now and felt like hiding my shamed face behind the nearest tree.
The sun disappeared, the clouds got darker and the thunder loomed closer…and up we went. No way we could give up the summit now! 2½ hours later, after a tricky and strenuous climb, we finally broke the snow and tree line and headed for the top. It was truly spectacular. We had a 360 degrees view, although I have to admit, my sights were rather set on the large, dark clouds overhead
Jeff wanted to stay and take it all in, appreciate how far we had come and to see the magnificent views. However, by now I was a nervous wreck. No chance I was hanging around. We took a couple of pictures and I high-tailed it back down on the path as fast as my legs could carry me. Now this is a tricky function, as there are tree stumps, roots, rocks of varying sizes to navigate and a not-so-easy path to follow. But I motored down with Jeff reluctantly on my heels. He is always the leader as he is a great path and snake spotter. But not this time. I was first as you can see in the picture.
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And then it came…… the lightning bolt just shot out of the sky followed about a second later, with the loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard. I felt like I had been shot. It was SO close. I screamed, covered my head and was just about to have a panic attack when Jeff induced me to calm down and said there was nothing we could do, except turn our thoughts heavenwards. And that is exactly what I did as we descended as fast as our legs could take us – back to the safety of our car in record time. Anyone needs any running records broken, just call on me with a bolt of lightning.
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