Any Mountaineer or Hill walker you talk to will have had their fair share of problems and close encounters. Listening to this advice and learning from it for most people is worth more than its weight in gold. Making a mistake once, that’s OK if you learn from it, but never make the same mistake twice, then you are just being foolish.
This article is going to explore a few scenarios. Each will be presented in four identical ways: The scene; where is this, when, what is the weather like. Amount of people involved. What happened. What lessons can we learn.
Scenario 1:
February, The Long Mynd, Deep snow higher up on the plateau.
Team of 3 relatively un-experienced walkers.
The team left the bottom of the valley, which was wet but no real snowy presence and headed up into the hills aiming to get to a camp site on the far side. The team struggled up a very icy slope and finally made it onto the top. Once here they found waist deep snow as far as the eye could see and everything looked the same bland white colour. After taking a bearing and setting off it soon became apparent they had walked the wrong way and were now well off the path. They accidentally stumbled upon a stream, this stream was quite deep and one of the team ended up knee deep in the freezing water. Eventually this same team member (who later turned out to be wearing jeans underneath his waterproofs) dropped with hypothermia, started shaking, struggling to talk and do basic things with his hands like opening pockets and tying shoelaces. The Team leader made the decision there and then that they could not get to any of the designated evacuation spots so got the team somewhere out of the wind and assessed the situation. The leader made the decision to stay with the member who was struggling with hypothermia and start trying to warm him up while the other member of the team attempted to find phone signal and call for help from mountain rescue. Giving them a six figure grid reference and a land mark. As the day progressed, the rescue team arrived after a long time. The team found out that this delay was due to mountain rescue having to also be rescued after getting stuck in the snow.
Lessons learnt:
Don’t waste time taking short cuts, especially in bad weather when you dont know where you are.
Don’t rely on others to get you off the mountain, sometimes, un-forseen circumstances mean you need to rely on yourself. Sometimes even the rescuers need rescuing.
Always make sure you know what your team is wearing, if you aren’t happy with something then say before it becomes a problem.
Learn to read a map and when using it in bad weather always get it checked before setting off.
Scenario 2.
Pen-Y-Fan Winter, lots of snow again.
Team of 2 experienced mountaineers.
The team approached the summit from the north about 1/3 of the way up, the team stopped and put crampons on and replaced walking poles with axes. the ascent went smoothly, no problems with the weather or navigation. The team reached the final small scramble before the summit and even tho crampons weren’t necessary they aided the team in climbing quickly. On the summit the team stopped for a few minutes for food and the obligatory summit photos. After this they started descending the same way they came, when they got to the top of the scramble the wind picked up creating a small isolated white out. confident they were going the correct way the team started descending, in a small break in the weather they saw they had climbed slightly off route so adjusted their route accordingly. the wind started picking up spin drift off the side of the face and blowing it into the teams faces. Both team members had goggles, but they were in their bags somewhere and unable to be recovered in the position they were in. After finally making it to the bottom of the scramble and out of the worst of the wind, they checked their route and finished the descent.
Lessons learnt.
Carry and regularly check your map, even if you think you know the route you are climbing, adverse weather conditions can make even the most well known route look different.
Carry the right equipment with you and dont let others put you off using it, if you think you need it, and it will make you feel more secure and confident then use it.
Pay attention to where you are. Don’t just wonder off in the direction you think.. CHECK
Having the right kit for the conditions is all well and good, but only if you can get to it when you need it. Plan ahead, pack ahead.
Scenario 3:
December Brecon beacons again, deep snow.
Team of two.
One team mate started showing signs of hypothermia (mumbles, stumbles, grumbles and fumbles as he put it) so the other team mate Ryan decided that getting team mate number 1 off the mountain was a priority and getting them warm. They got to the bottom and SLOWLY warmed back up. As this was happening person 2 left their kit unattended away from the car. The kit in question is always packed perfectly as mine is every time in the same way, mine works for me and Ryan’s works for him. After warming up a bit they drove off and got somewhere they could get good warm food. In this situation Ryan left his kit on the side of the mountain as his priority, rightly so was the casualty.
Lessons learnt from this:
make sure your kit is fine, packed perfectly and tidily.
understand about the weather what it can do and what it means to you on the mountain both where you are and further up.
Leave a route plan in a secure place with someone trustworthy.
How to read a map without any digital help.
Have a supply of food and warm clothing.
Don’t be afraid to turn around when you need to before you need to get external help.
Do not switch off until all people in the group are safe and secure.
Inform people at home when you get down and of any change of plan.
Scenario 4:
January, Cairngorms, Snow again
Single experienced mountaineer.
Started at Glenmore Lodge, ascended the North face of Cairngorm Mountain, After making it to the summit he decided to move west accross the ridge at Corie An T-sneachda and descend via Aladins Couloir before heading up the valley north back to Glenmore Lodge. As he got to the top of the couloir and started to descend 2 freak gusts of wind pulled him off the top, he fell down the couloir and ultimately died. There was a mountain rescue team training on the mountain near him, they saw him fall and was on the scene in minutes but to no avail.
Lessons learnt
The biggest and hardest thing to take away from this one is that even when you do nothing wrong, things can still go wrong.
Matts Mountaineering 