Back in 92 some friends and myself climbed to the top of a mountain in Kentucky to take some pics. To my luck there was a storm just to behind the mountain. I took some great shots of the lighting.
I learn some very valuable lessons that day.
Lesson number 1 - Storms climbs mountains way faster than you can get to a safe place.
It seemed so far away right up to the time when it reached us.
Lesson number 2 - Lightening strikes the tallest object, and on top of a mountain is not the place that you want to be in a thunderstorm. As it turned out, though we were not the tallest object. The 1000ft radio tower was. The 1000ft METAL radio tower.
There was a little round metal building about 5 ft high and 5 ft around. We all crammed in it.
Lesson #3 - You don't want to be in a little metal building at the base of a 1000 foot radio tower on top of a mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm.
I told the other guys that I was going to take my chances in the woods on the side of the mountain. Some of the other guys said that you're not suppose to be under trees during a thunderstorm.
I told them it was better than being on top of a mountain, in a little metal building, at the base of a 1000 foot metal tower! Half of the guys agreed with me and half agreed with that it was safer in the building. So half of us took off running through the woods down the side of the mountain. Storm passed and we all survived.
We had about a 5 mile hike back to where we were staying and somewhere between the mountain and home, I dropped the camera.
The next day, me and another guy, went back to look for the camera. We we're in huge open field, when from over the same mountain came another bad thunderstorm.
Lesson #4 Thunderstorms moves faster down a mountain than it does up.
Lesson #5 A huge open field is not a safe place to be in a thunderstorm.
We ran with lightening striking all around us. We decided that we couldn't out run the storm so we laid down so we wouldn't be the tallest objects in the field.
Lesson #6 That camera and the awesome pics of the lightening was not worth our lives. We decided to forget about that dang camera.
I do have some pics of another trip to this mountain. I also have pics of some of us on top of the 1000ft tower. Maybe I'll get those pics online one day.
Oh yeah that's an awesome pic AK.
All the lightning pics I have are from last year, the 1st on February, then an awesome photosession in mid June, and again in July 
