Book review: "A Bolt From the Blue" by Jennifer Woodlief

Near the rugged summit of Grand Teton in Wyoming, six mountain climbers are struck by lightning. One dies despite frantic efforts to save her, the others are severely hurt. At the base of the mountain, an elite cadre of rescuers mobilizes. With limited hours of daylight left and storm clouds swirling, will they be able to reach the injured climbers and get them off the mountain before the freezing darkness descends? 

This is the dramatic story told in the second half of "A Bolt from the Blue," a stirring 2012 book by Jennifer Woodlief. Though the first half is slow, the book becomes a gripping page-turner midway through as Woodlief carefully recounts how a powerful lightning strike on July 26, 2003, prompted a remarkable rescue effort. 

With injured climbers scattered in three places on the mountain — none of them easy to get to — the rescue undertaken by the Jenny Lake rangers and helicopter pilot Laurence Perry becomes a fast-paced, high-alttitude ballet aimed at reaching the victims, tending to them, and getting them off the mountain. 

The deceased climber, Erica Summers, and her badly injured husband, were on a tiny rock platform. Below them were three injured men who had been knocked off a wall by the lightning while climbing and would have plummeted to their deaths had their ropes not snagged on a rocky outcropping ("Dumb and nearly miraculous luck," writes Woodlief).

Then there was climber Rodrigo Liberal, who rangers called "Folded Man." Liberal had been struck by lightning while climbing, causing him to plummet down, ending up dangling on a rope, his belly pointed skyward and his head bent back almost to reach his feet. At first view, both his fellow climbers and the rescuers thought he must be dead (spoiler: He wasn't). 

In a story full of heroes, one of the biggest is Perry, who for four hours flies his helicopter up and down the mountain, hovering perilously close to rock faces amid strong and unpredictable winds, first ferrying rangers and supplies, then later pulling off vicitms one at a time. 

Woodlief interviewed nearly all the players in this drama, and infuses the story with countless details. She paints vivid scene descriptions ("he was lying on his back with Sherika standing over him, a horrified look on her face"), small actions ("Craig put his knees against the wall facing the mountain and came up underneath Rod"), and even smells ("Her hair was badly singed, and there was a strong burning scent").

Woodlief does such a good job in describing the rescue that I feel bad to point out the weaknesses of the  book, which are mostly in the first half. It's in the first half where the author gives us the background on, well, everything. She describes the life stories of multiple characters, the science of lightning, the history of the Jenny Lake ranger program, how helicopters work, and the intricasies of various techniques.

There are some interesting things here, but it's too much and often repetitive (she emphasizes, multiple times, how well-trained the Jenny Lake rangers are). While some background on the characters is good, she drifts too far off into things that are irrelevant to the story. We don't need to know the wife of one of the rangers grew up "fly-fishing, backpacking, hiking, taking burro trips in the Sierra Nevada" (she has no role in the rescue). Nor do we need the recipe for one of the ranger's "Large Trail Cookies."

 As a reader, you're chomping at the bit to get to the main story, but it almost seems like Woodlief is padding the book or even stalling for time  It's especially irritating in the second half. Late in the book, with the drama of the story going full tilt, Woodlief somehow thinks it's important to press pause and to describe the youth of one of the victims and how he met his wife on an ice skaing rink.

Woodlief makes a poor choice to lead off the book with a lot of deep background on ranger Renny Jackson. While Jackson played a role in the rescue as the "spotter" on Perry's helicopter, he is not a major part of the story. A better choice would have been to open with some background on Rod LIberal, since his ordeal plays a large role at the end of the book. 

For readers who are considering reading this book, here's what I would suggest: Read the six-page teaser at the start of the book that sets the scene, then skip ahead to chapter six or seven in the middle of the book where the real action begins.

After you're done, if you want more background on the rangers, their training, the science of lightning, or flying a helicopter, you can go back and find all of that in the first half. Think of it as like watching the "Behind the Scenes" or "Making of" video after watching a movie.