Southern Rockies Nature Blog: These Hunters' Deaths Hit Me Hard: Search and rescue volunteers are briefed before heading out. (Conejos County Sheriff's Office) The search for two missing bowhunters, An...
This is terrible news, to say the least.
When I first heard of these two men dying, it was by way of a headline. As I was extremely busy at the time, I didn't read deeper into the story. I frankly assumed they had succumbed due to hypothermia, and that they were likely inexperienced outdoorsmen.
I learned more about it sage chicken hunting with a companion, who had looked into the story more. He revealed that in fact they were experienced outdoorsmen, but we both assumed that they had died due to hypothermia. We assumed, frankly, that they'd stepped out for what they thought would be a shorter trip and were caught in a bad situation at which point they couldn't address the onset of the condition.
It turns out we were wrong. It was a lightning strike.
I've been afraid of lightning my entire life, and a lot of that is due to living an outdoor life. From my earliest years I can recall being fascinated with lightning, but also fearing it. My earliest recollection of an electrical strike close by was when I was a child, looking out our picture window. and saw a bolt of lightning hit the ground right in front of the house and arc over the street, as a car passed under it.
My mother related that her grandfather had actually been hit by lightning observing an electrical storm out the back window of a house in St. Lambert, Quebec. He was fine, but that might have made an early impression with me. My father, an avid outdoorsman, didn't mess with lightening at all, although he would continue to fish well past the point he should as electrical storms approached. The childhood step father of a friend of mine was killed on the golf course by lightning. The father of a gaggle of girls who where my contemporaries was killed on horseback when struck by lightning.
I had plenty of reasons as a kid to fear lightning.
As an adult, I've seen lightning strike a human occupied thing when I saw a blot strike a boat in Alcova Reservoir. I was far enough away that I don't know what happened to the people in it. While living in Laramie, and going to law school, I had a bolt of lightning strike a power line right above the point I was at as I was hurriedly walking home, hoping to beat the storm. It blew me to the ground, and I was deaf in one ear for about a week. Also in Laramie, I remember being up in the high country elk hunting and briefly conversing with a mounted hunter as a storm started to roll in. The air grew electrick and came in contact, somehow, with the horses steel ringlets on his bridle, causing his ears to shoot up, and a visible electrical current pass between the tips of his ears, just before he reared around and charged down the mountain.
Storms will appear and surprise you.
In the sticks, I watch the weather like a hawk. It's not snow I'm afraid of being caught in, it's an electrical storm. I'll abandon a place early if I think it looks like such a storm is rolling in.
Electrical storms in the high country are particularly dangerous. Due to the terrain, they roll up at you before you can appreciate them, and they are very frequent. High altitude afternoon thunderstorms are a norm in mountainous terrain.
Added to that, in spite of Donald Trump and His Confederacy of Clowns, climate change has extended the summer and fall and that's making traditional activities in late fall more dangerous in various ways. I'm not terribly familiar with Southern Colorado, but I can claim some familiarity with Northern Colorado and lots of familiarity with all of Wyoming. This time of year, say thirty or more years ago, storm above 6,000 feet here were snowstorms, not rain storms. We worried about being snowed out, or snowed in, not rain. Now thanks to a desperate belief on the part of some that things aren't changing, or it isn't our fault, things are changing.
Wide Open Spaces reported their cause of death as being surprising. I'm not terribly surprised, as I've had too many close calls with lightning even while being careful. I'll merely note, it pays to be careful out there. . . really careful.
But sometimes, that won't save you.
Regarding the tragic deaths of Andrew Porter and Ian Stasko:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
