Hillwalkers found safe and well

[jonren]

Make these idiots pay for the rescue. Hillwalking in present conditions is sheer stupidity. I believe a helicopter was used also. Rescuers on the ground risk their lives in these conditions.


news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7871357.stm

[RMPNCO]

Unfortunately there is currently no known cure for stupidity.

[Beachcomber]

I've just heard a report on my local Cumbrian radio station that two walkers have been brought down from the fells near Ambleside. ........ one dead & one seriously injured.

It's time compulsory insurance was enforced to offset the cost of the rescues and to reimburse the lost wages of the volunteer rescuers.

[flatandy]

In Austria everyone's a member of the Austrian Alpine Society which provides walkers with insurance. The helicopters basically refuse to pick people up who aren't members.

And people really should know better than to go up the UK's hills in winter without being properly equipped an prepared. The UK is warm, but it's a long, long way north, and it doesn't take long for it to get seriously bleak and bitter on the highlands. As dangerous, basically, as anywhere in the Alps.

[Libby]

Well said Beachy! The fortunes spent on search and rescue expeditions must be recompensed somehow.

[omnipleasant]

To be fair, it's not always just down to stupidity. The weather can change in minutes, no matter what the forecast.

[flatandy]

True, Omni. But if you choose to go up in snow, when there's forecast of more snow, and you're not properly equipped, then it's your own look out.

At least, in defence of these people, none of them were travelling on their own. That's usually the biggest problem. That kind of walking you should always do in company.

[Libby]

Whatever happened to risk assessment?! Surely if bad weather is forecast (and it had been nationally for quite a few days beforehand), plans for any expeditions should have been put on hold until the weather stabilised again?! I appreciate the unforeseen can always happen.

[Beachcomber]

Not sure about other areas - but the fells in Cumbria aren't deserted during the winter. The local Hill farmers have to check their flocks each day and there's one poor sod whose job it is to check the weather station on top of Helvelyn 365 days a year (long walk up - and long walk down, every day) !

It's the 'weekend walkers' from the cities that cause the problems - not the locals who live here.

[flatandy]

Have a friend who works for Snowdon mountain rescue and gets driven mad by the "distress" phone calls from people on their mobiles. Either the ones which say "we're halfway up Snowdon and are hungry", or the ones where people in jeans and t-shirts, with one half-liter bottle of water, are trapped in a storm on a highly exposed ridge.

[Beachcomber]

Our local mountain rescue has published a list of "Distress Calls" they've received in the past....... One of them was from a couple who used their mobile to call for help as they were "Going to be late for dinner at their Hotel"

[Libby]

It's all flat where i am so no worries about hills and climbing. Having said that i have the coast at the end of my road, and the idiots who go sailing in dinghies in howling winds and high tides beggars belief! They ignore the red flags and then the Coastguards and lifeboats are sent out!