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Snowdon Mountain Rescue

Added 23rd of February 2009

A NorthRidge Adventure group, out on a Mountain Experience course helped raise the alarm for the climbers caught out on Y Lliwedd (22 Feb 2009).

Whilst descending from Snowdon in snowy and increasingly blustery conditions at approximately 1800hrs, we noticed a headtorch in flash mode, high up below Lliwedd main summit. It was already nearly full dark, so our first thoughts were that this was a distress signal, however the randomness of the flashes (up to 41 in a row) cast some doubt on this. It soon became clear though, that this was a genuine distress call, and this opinion was reinforced by the only other party still out, who reported seeing the climbers in a similar location around 1600. At this point we had agreed with a solo walker that he would raise the alarm with the Pen y PassYHA warden, whilst our colleagues had a mobile signal which was used for the 999 call.

We continued to provide reassurance to the cragfast party that people were aware, by keeping up torch flashes periodically and by establishing a special signal so they would know this was the same person (increases the confidence that message has been understood). Shouts could be faintly hear during lulls in the wind and Duncan was able to demonstrate some fine parade ground lung power to let the guys know MR had been called. The guy shouting for help sounded in control and was doing a good job of communicating slowly and clearly.

All our NRA courses focus on detailed map reading, so this was obviously too good a chance to miss - resection practice is never wasted and our students were soon able to give a 8 figure GR of the climbers' location. After all, we couldn't do much more to help withought potentially adding to existing problems, so why not put the whole experince to good use?

We were camping out anyway, coincidentally below the main face of Y Lliwedd, and the Sea King's lights signalled the start of an exciting show.

It was easy to feel respect for all the RAF and MR personnel, it was a dirty night later on with a thick drizzly mist and cold gusting wind and we could see the lights up around the summit for hours and hours - in addition the helicopter crew had made several close approaches and how they held it so steady I don't know..

In a way it was a shame we were already knackered from our own day out or we could have gone up for a closer look but everyone got down safe so that's the main thing!

More coverage at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1476177/Camera-flash-keeps-rescuers-in-the-picture.html

and...

http://www.grough.co.uk/view/2009/02/22/climbers-attract-flak-after-eight-hour-rescue/

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Article written by North Ridge.

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