Rain Adds a Touch of Reality to Christo’s Umbrella Exhibit : Art display: Some sightseers take refuge from the storm. And two couples get married under the octagonal canopies.

Damp weather and lightning storms sweeping across the top of Tejon Pass on Saturday morning did not prevent thousands of curious people from exploring the Christo umbrellas exhibit.

The 18-mile installation attracted picnickers, photographers, tourists from as far away as the Netherlands and Japan, and two couples who were wed beneath the golden umbrellas.

Lydia Markor, a substitute teacher from Bakersfield, took refuge under one of the octagonal canopies during the heaviest downpour.

“It was so poetically ironic to have to stand under Christo’s umbrellas to keep dry,” Markor said.

The rains, which began during the night and continued off and on until midmorning, enhanced the visual impact of the umbrellas, leaving them just moist enough to shimmer in the afternoon sun. Rainfall also darkened the tan hills to khaki, creating a greater contrast with the umbrella fabric and making them more visible from a distance.

In all, Christo’s staff estimated that 25,000 people stopped to see the spectacle Saturday. California Department of Transportation officials said that if it remains dry today, as predicted, even larger crowds would materialize.

The sporadic storms, however, caused worry about lightning striking the structures’ metal frames, which stand nearly 20 feet tall.

Two hunters were injured by lightning that hit a tree above Quail Lake, about a mile from the umbrella site. The hunters, whose names were not released, were listed in stable condition at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

The incident led Los Angeles County firefighters to warn people to stay away from the umbrellas during the electrical storms.

“Those umbrellas out there are just like a bunch of grounding rods,” Capt. Don Deyoung said. “If the lightning is looking for a place to ground, it could go there.”

Augie Huber, Christo’s general contractor, said electrical engineers had been consulted about the danger of lightning more than a year ago.

The umbrellas are grounded, he said, and do not present an inordinate danger. However, Huber advised against standing beneath them during lightning storms “just like you wouldn’t stand under a large tree.”

Caltrans estimated that traffic on Interstate 5 was 50% greater than normal in northbound lanes and 30% higher southbound. The lower volume of southbound travelers was attributed partly to closure of the highway 30 miles north of the exhibit’s terminus at the Grapevine. About 11:30 a.m., a truck driver discovered that his load of hydrofluoric acid was leaking, and California Highway Patrol officials shut down the freeway for four hours, detouring traffic onto California 99.

Side streets in the small towns and rest stops along the exhibit route were clogged with cars, pedestrians and tour buses. By early afternoon, a line of cars had backed up on the freeway south of the Gorman off-ramp, and lines of hungry people stretched outside the doors of restaurants there.

At Country Pride restaurant, a truck stop just north of the Grapevine, waitress Inez Fuller was harriedly serving steak lunches to a full house.

“This is the slowest we’ve been since 6:30 this morning,” Fuller said, stopping briefly to catch her breath. “None of us has had time for a break.”

In Gorman, near the southern end of the umbrellas, Lancaster artisan Mary Havey and her daughter Jessica, 9, were doing a brisk business selling palm-sized rocks painted with yellow umbrellas for $5 apiece.

“We sold out yesterday,” Havey said. “I stayed up all night making new ones.”

One fender-bender involving four vehicles was attributed to the umbrella gawkers. About 11:15 a.m., a pickup truck hit a car on the Gorman off-ramp, causing a chain reaction with two other cars.

“I think they were looking at the umbrellas,” said the pickup’s driver, Dan Davis of Chatsworth, who had driven up for a picnic lunch. “Of course, I was looking at the umbrellas too.”

The brief thunderstorms created discomfort for campers and briefly postponed helicopter tours. But those affected remained good-natured, caught up in the whimsical spirit of the art show.

Tanya La Fave and Teri Ackley of Torrance drove up at 4 a.m. to avoid the traffic, only to find no vacant hotel rooms in Bakersfield. They pitched a tent in the Fort Tejon campground and weathered the storms.

“My little tent prevailed,” La Fave said with a laugh as she folded up the shelter Saturday morning. “The only place we got wet was in the shower this morning.”

The under-umbrella wedding of Lloyd Herziger and Barbara Manfull was delayed two hours by the rain and fear of lightning strikes. Sheet music for the ceremony’s quartet blew all over the mountain in a gust of wind, sending musicians and guests scattering to retrieve it.

“I hope I don’t get a reputation as the unusual-wedding minister,” said the Rev. Russ Watson of Tehachapi.

Aside from weather concerns, the main law-enforcement problems involved zealous umbrella viewers trespassing on private land, where most of the 1,760 umbrellas stand. Early Saturday morning, a Kern County sheriff’s deputy caught a couple having sex under an umbrella on private property above Digier Road.

Two Claremont residents were arrested Saturday afternoon off Gorman Post Road, accused of obstructing an officer during an argument over traffic rerouting in Gorman.

The CHP worked diligently to clear parked cars from the sides of the freeway and received several reports of people running across the freeway to snap photographs of the umbrella-dotted hillsides.

Contributing to this article were Times staff writers David Colker and Jim Herron Zamora.

Umbrella Update

Artist Christo’s latest temporary outdoor art project, “The Umbrellas,” is on display through Oct. 30. Here is some help in viewing:

Where: Along Interstate 5 for 18 miles north from intersection of California 138 to the bottom of the Grapevine in the San Joaquin Valley.

Directions: Take I-5 north from Los Angeles, about 60 miles from downtown.

Turnarounds: At Quail Lake Road, Gorman, Frazier Park, Lebec and Ft. Tejon exits.

Viewing areas: Designated along the freeway and on Gorman Post, Lebec, Digier and Grapevine roads.

Traffic report: Traffic volume was twice as heavy as usual along Interstate 5 north through the Grapevine, and 50% heavier than normal heading southbound on Saturday, Caltrans officials said. Traffic along county roads in the area was more than twice the average, according to California Highway Patrol officials. There was no slowing due to congestion on I-5, but county roads were clogged with tourists viewing the umbrellas. Traffic is also expected to be heavy today. There were no reports of slowing on alternate routes.

Additional details: Available at an information center in Gorman.