A hiker has survived being struck from head to toe by a lightning bolt so powerful it ripped off all the clothes from his body and burned a hole in one of his shoes.

Mathias Steinhuber had an entry wound on his head and an exit wound on his foot after being struck when he stopped to take a photo on a 9,000ft peak in the Sierra Nevada range in California.

"I woke up. I had blood everywhere, my clothes were ripped apart," the Austrian told AP.

"At some distance I heard my girlfriend scream my name. My first conclusion was that I probably fell down the mountain."

Steinhuber said a thunderstorm could be seen in the distance but there was no rain or lightning nearby when the thunderbolt struck.

He was on the climb with his girlfriend Kathrin Klausner and a friend Carla Elvidge.

"He was taking a picture and the next thing I know, I see this white flash, like an explosion," Elvidge said.

Another lightning bolt narrowly missed Klausner, though she felt a shock in her body, before the women called for help, unsure if Steinhuber would even survive.

A paramedic was flown onto the nearby Tinker Knob peak and tended to Steinhuber before he was taken to a nearby hospital and flown on to a specialist Californian burns centre.

Steinhuber was said to be in fair condition and said he felt extraordinarily lucky to have survived.

He was even able to joke about his apparent good fortune.

"Somebody told me the odds are higher winning the lottery than getting struck by lightning," he said.

"I would've rather won the lottery."