I met two other hikers who stood in a rainbow high in the mountains during a rainstorm. People don’t believe them either. Men lecture me on refracted light, and insist it is impossible.

"I have a science background so technically speaking I can assure you yes, you can stand in a rainbow," a man told me. "Although you’d need to be in a sufficient latitude and height for this to occur."

At age 22, I backpacked up Mt. Shuksan in northwest Washington. That evening, we camped above the tree line around 7,000-feet elevation. We saw the sunset behind Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Black clouds shot up Mt. Baker, thirty miles away.

The next day, a massive storm blew in. Black clouds shot up Mt. Baker, exploding with hail, lightning and pounding rain. Hail piled up like snowdrifts, washing small ptarmigan birds downhill. "PEEP! Peep…peep…pe…” Lightning struck around us. We were extremely polite. “Perhaps it isn’t wise to hold that metal ice axe in this lightning.”

Pouring rain soaked us to the skin. Our boots filled with water. The sun shone in a nearby valley. And we stood in a rainbow. We saw the rainbow colors on each other’s face. I stuck out my arm and marveled at the colors on my arm. It only lasted for a minute or two. My hiking partner was a medical doctor.

Carefully descending, I ferried baby ptarmigan birds across dry streambeds that were raging torrents.

Afterward, the sun steamed our backs as we slogged our way to the car.

This was a PEAK experience in my life.