Grand Teton

Short Trip Report: We, Patrick and Dave went to WY to climb the Grand Teton which is 13,775 ft tall. On our first summit attempt day, a thunderstorm which was forecast for the afternoon rolled in at 10:30AM. We were on the upper technical portion of the mountain. We got off as quickly as is possible, but still got hail, rain, and the lightning passed directly overhead while we were still on a ridge. Three groups (two of whom we talked to the day before and one of whom was camped right next to us) totaling 17 people got struck by lightening. One of them died as he was struck by lightening and then fell off a 2000ft cliff into near the belly roll on the Owens Spalding route. 16 of the rest had electrical burns and injuries. They were flown off the mountain via helicopter. We made it back to our campsite safely. I am not sure if we were just lucky (we woke ~1.5 hours later than the group camped next to use) or if we turned around earlier.

More information about the rescue can be found in these two reports:
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6281
http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=6234

We then hiked off the mountain, refueled, updated WIMP information, got a new climbing permit and went back up. We successfully summited via the Owens Spalding route (on Friday) with the Whittick crack variation (5.6 route).