Electricity, Glaciers and Starfish

Lightning in the NZ Sourthern Alps

In North America and the European Alps lightning is regular hazard and while accidents are rare, there is some comfort in the fact that at least it is the beast that you know.  Here in New Zealand lightning in the mountains is much more rare, a fact that was little comfort to our group on the Plateau Glacier last week.  

Graupel is a type of snow that comes down as little round balls, like beads of styrofoam falling from the sky.  It is often associated with electrical storms and sure enough, just as we were getting ready to set up an anchor, the graupel storm started to intensify and we started to get the tell-tale symptoms.  First is a prickly feeling like you are being bombarded with sharp hail on your scalp, then there is a loud buzzing and tingling feeling like you are being subjected to a low wattage Tasering.  The natural response is to get as low as possible, so the group ended up laying spread eagled on the glacier with much nervous laughter..... very nervous laughter!  The buzzing would stop as long as we were star fished  flat on the snow. Kneeling was met with a crackling sound in my head and standing felt like I was slowly inserting a key in light socket.  I resumed the starfish.  After a few minutes we tentatively raised up and not feeling any zapping we scurried back to the safety of the nicely earthed Plateau Hut.