Here is a description of the strangest organism I ever had. It was inspired by the idea of women doing leg lifts in a roman chair. Extreme exertion. Now add cold, electricity and fear...
Scene. Mountains. After a few hours of hiking to well over twelve thousand feet, cross country, (from Big Pine, Fifth Lake to Jigsaw pass eastside, Sierra Neveda), the sky getting darker and darker as vast thunderheads roil over the high remote pass that over looks Bishop Pass just at mid-day. Cold wind blowing. Hadn't seen anybody for hours---been up and hiking since early morning. Place looks like some desolate scene in Prometheus Bound, in the Caucasus. Here is the view looking back at the descent:
http://angeles.sierraclub.org/skimt/trips/incons04/Inc-2137.htm
Here is a view of the pass:
http://angeles.sierraclub.org/skimt/trips/incons04/Inc-1919.htm
I stop to figure out how to descend. The cliff at the edge is steep, and just barely angled back enough to carefully pick my way down third class about seven hundred of feet of various gullies with scree to a high plateau and Bishop pass below with the regular trail to Dusy Basin. The veiw is spectacular, wind rushing up the face.
Very scary. I am standing at the pass looking down. Wind blowing, darkness at noon. Suddenly all my skin is tingling, crawling like I was afraid, or something. Weird electric things are dancing around my balls and pubic hair. I can't stand it, and open my pants to pee or something. I try peeing. Nothing. My penis seems to be crawling around on its own, semi-hard. I realize I am having an organism and a wad of cum splats out on the rocks.
Never seen that before. Now I am really freaked out. All my hair is standing on end and ant-like electric charges are crawling all over me. I finally figure it out. I am in a extreme electrically charged area, and lightening is going to strike here. The potentials are building up. I am right in the middle of an electric storm.
God almighty. I just slide down the first fifty feet into the steep gully, almost straight down into a series of corners and drops. I can't get down one section, so I lower my backpack on a nylon cord, and climb down. I am scrambling to get down lower. I am cowering near the gully face when a gigantic explosion hits about five hundred feet below and a hundred yards out from my wet, cold stance. The light is so bright, I can see the bolt as an electric purple after image with my eyes open. I jump in a complete panic and scream. Gotta get down. Then I find a place that is more secure, less exposed and I pull out an ensolite pad and sit on it, and try to relax. I can't relax. I try to light a cigarette and it just crumbles in my shaking fingers. I am quivering like an animal about to be slaughtered. The smell of ozone is extreme, like cooked relays.
I can't sit still, so I try to get down slowly,... Another smaller bolt cuts loose like a mortar exploding below, leaving a smoking spot on wet rocks. Several more strikes below, with long standing branches. More steam and ozone, more jumping and screaming, more creepy crawly feelings. More icy rain and hale that I barely feel.
Finally get off the steep cliff and race to a low ravine. The worst of the storm is over. In the distance some other hikers are standing around a small fire drying off and chatting. (Long before prohibitions against wood fires, early seventies)
Never been more scared in my entire life, or scared for so long. It must have more than two or three hours of terror. When I finally look at my watch, it is well after three. The day is over, as if it never happened.
CG