La Plata Peak Trip Report 07/09/2025

Report Type	Full
Peak(s)	La Plata Peak - 14,344 feet
Date Posted	07/09/2025
Date Climbed	07/08/2025
Author	GregoryPeterson

Avoiding Lightning at 14200 ft
Scary Experience on a Not-So-Scary mountain. I summitted La Plata Peak yesterday (7/8/25) with my dog Jango. I kind of overpacked since this was only his 2nd 14er after Sherman. He's very athletic but I wanted to make sure we were prepared for anything. The way up was gorgeous along the river, lots of spots for Jango to drink water and dip his feet to cool off. Absolutely stunning wildflowers, dozens of types. The trail through the trees is steep but well defined. It's shaded and easy to follow. The air was pretty still and warm in the trees, and didn't get much more exciting when we hit the ridge - though it was stunning up top! Now, I knew there were some clouds coming in around noon, per the usual this time of year, but it was absolutely clear and beautiful the whole hike up. The trail after the ridge is very hard to keep track of. Jango and I spent most of this portion just boulder-hopping and climbing straight up the big rock field towards the top. Once you get back to the upper ridge the trail becomes more defined. We could definitely use some work on the cairns for the trail going up. Maybe I'll look into helping out with that. Once we got to the peak we took a break and had an early lunch at about 10:30. We could see a raincloud off in the distance but we thought we had plenty of time before it got to us. There were about 4-5 of us at the summit. Then it got exciting. I'm almost done with my turkey, lettuce and cheese sandwich, when my hiking poles started making a weird noise. I figured maybe it's just the pressure, since they're cheap Walmart poles, but a nice lady at the top was quick to realize all of our hair was standing up and then we all started noticing a loud buzzing and crackling sound. We were charging up lightning! A cloud had literally started forming right over our heads. It suddenly started hailing/snowing so we looked at each other and with eyes and body language we both yelled RUN. I grabbed my gear and started sprinting off the side of the mountain, towards the snow field, with the intention of getting down as fast as possible. I unhooked Jango's leash and we RAN (and stumbled) all the way down to treeline. Every time I would stand up I would feel the crackling, to the point where my ears hurt, so I'd dive back to the ground. My poles were shocking my hands so I dropped one in the snow field on the way down (if anyone recovers it you can do with it as you please). So I just tried to go fast and stay low. Then thunder started crashing around us, and we saw a small rock slide get triggered. I'm pretty bruised up, have a few little scrapes and cuts, but nothing serious. Jango probably has no idea he was even ever in any danger. But I sure have a new lease on life today, and a greater respect for the mountains and the surprise weather than can appear. On that note, anyone have recommendations for poles that are not conductive? 😅 Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Avoiding Lightning at 14200 ft

Scary Experience on a Not-So-Scary mountain.

I summitted La Plata Peak yesterday (7/8/25) with my dog Jango. I kind of overpacked since this was only his 2nd 14er after Sherman. He's very athletic but I wanted to make sure we were prepared for anything.

The way up was gorgeous along the river, lots of spots for Jango to drink water and dip his feet to cool off. Absolutely stunning wildflowers, dozens of types. The trail through the trees is steep but well defined. It's shaded and easy to follow. The air was pretty still and warm in the trees, and didn't get much more exciting when we hit the ridge - though it was stunning up top!

Now, I knew there were some clouds coming in around noon, per the usual this time of year, but it was absolutely clear and beautiful the whole hike up.

The trail after the ridge is very hard to keep track of. Jango and I spent most of this portion just boulder-hopping and climbing straight up the big rock field towards the top. Once you get back to the upper ridge the trail becomes more defined. We could definitely use some work on the cairns for the trail going up. Maybe I'll look into helping out with that.

Once we got to the peak we took a break and had an early lunch at about 10:30. We could see a raincloud off in the distance but we thought we had plenty of time before it got to us. There were about 4-5 of us at the summit.

Then it got exciting.

I'm almost done with my turkey, lettuce and cheese sandwich, when my hiking poles started making a weird noise. I figured maybe it's just the pressure, since they're cheap Walmart poles, but a nice lady at the top was quick to realize all of our hair was standing up and then we all started noticing a loud buzzing and crackling sound.

We were charging up lightning!

A cloud had literally started forming right over our heads. It suddenly started hailing/snowing so we looked at each other and with eyes and body language we both yelled RUN.

I grabbed my gear and started sprinting off the side of the mountain, towards the snow field, with the intention of getting down as fast as possible.

I unhooked Jango's leash and we RAN (and stumbled) all the way down to treeline. Every time I would stand up I would feel the crackling, to the point where my ears hurt, so I'd dive back to the ground. My poles were shocking my hands so I dropped one in the snow field on the way down (if anyone recovers it you can do with it as you please). So I just tried to go fast and stay low. Then thunder started crashing around us, and we saw a small rock slide get triggered.

I'm pretty bruised up, have a few little scrapes and cuts, but nothing serious. Jango probably has no idea he was even ever in any danger. But I sure have a new lease on life today, and a greater respect for the mountains and the surprise weather than can appear.

On that note, anyone have recommendations for poles that are not conductive? 😅

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

Rick Canter

history repeats itself
7/14/2025 10:08am

Hi Gregory, I had summited about 20 of the 14ers when I endured what I call "LaPlata Graupelfest" on a July morning. It was the most serious event I have endured in Colorado, accumulating graupel BELOW me on Ellingwood Ridge, Flash/Boom lightning. A newbie near me pointed into the sky with his trekking pole (duh!). We were both fortunate. I stayed on the trail, steadily descending with 1-2" of graupel under me. All I had on was hiking boots, no traction control. The skies cleared. There are very few photos of this event, as you might imagine. Unlike you, the skies were getting bad for me all day, but I kept going up until the trouble began, and it got very bad very quickly. My 2 cents? Any billowing clouds, go down. Clouds multiplying in the morning, go down. Any clouds at all at daybreak, stay vigilant.

I returned to the LaPlata trailhead the very next day and summited. Happy ending.

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