Pair to Climb Mountain for Friend : Tragedy: Hikers vow a memorial trip up Mt. Whitney in honor of a 26-year-old killed in a lightning storm.

Jim Swift, a hiker who survived a lightning storm on Mt. Whitney that claimed the life of his roommate, remembered coming down the mountain saying, “I’m never coming back here again.”

But by Monday, two days after Matthew E. Nordbrock, 26, was killed, he had had a change of heart.

“A good friend of Matt’s came over (Sunday) night and he said to me, ‘You know, I’m going to have to go up there and see that place. I want to see the place where Matt last was.’ ”

Swift agreed to go along. “We’re going to do it as a memorial climb,” he said.

Nordbrock died Saturday at the summit of Mt. Whitney in an old stone hut with a corrugated metal roof, which acted as a lightning rod.

Swift said he, Nordbrock and two other friends had noticed a severe change in weather when they reached the summit.

“All the way up, the sky was blue with hardly any clouds. Then about 2:23 p.m. we reached the top and the clouds started rolling in five minutes later. The wind picked up and the skies grew darker,” Swift said.

The air became electrically charged, Swift said. “Matt noticed it and said, ‘Did you feel that?’ I felt this little shock on my feet. At the same time, Kent (Kroener) looked at me and said, ‘Oh, man! I feel my hair. I can feel it going up,’ from static electricity,” Swift said.

The four made a run for the old hut, where they encountered nine other hikers who had taken refuge from the storm. Within 30 seconds it started to rain, and hail pelted the metal roof.

“Then out of absolutely nowhere this lightning entered the structure,” Swift said. “It was like a lightning ball, not a jolt. It was popping and crackling and I thought to myself, ‘What is this thing?’ ”

The hut’s floors and walls became electrified, immobilizing those inside. The tremendous flash left everyone inside the hut with first- and second-degree burns. Swift said his feet “felt glued” to the floor. Later, he learned that part of the electrical energy had entered the back of his right leg, run down both legs and came out through his feet, burning holes in the bottoms of his shoes.

Nordbrock died of the electrical charge despite prolonged efforts to revive him.

“Look at what it took to claim his life,” Swift said. “He was in the highest place in the United States you can be, and there’s Matt, in the center of the room, talking to a bunch of people, and God just had to get his highest weapon to take him off this earth.”

Funeral services will be held Friday in Tucson.