Interesting story here about a couple who fell 450 ft through a cornice in Scottish winter conditions and walked out despite both having broken bones. It takes a cool head to extricate yourself as well as they did – would that all mountaineers and outdoors folk were as reluctant to involve the MRTs.

The full account is five posts down the page.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=574374&v=1

When we first started in the mountains it was a given that no-one was going to come and rescue you, you were on your own. It’s only in the past 20 years or so that people have been able to rely on a safety net whatever they choose to do. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I’m not sure.

Also spent sometime climbing in Nepal that was a real eye-opener in terms of being on your own

i think its an experiance thing

that couple seemed to have heaps of experiance and so id hope knew when to make the call – their reasoning was rational – they knew where they were , they knew where they were going and both were mobile – they werent loosing blood.

the issue today is folk dont want to gain experiance and work their way up – folk want to do the extreme right now – folk want to go to work on monday and say i climbed XYZ and make colleagues go “wow”

you see it alot on scottish ski slopes – folk who can barely stand up on skis who yet are off piste…..

without that experiance to judge on your only back up is the mtn rescue.

This is not a good thing.

Very good effort, though I would probably have made the call from the top to let them know the score and expect a cancel call in 5 hrs etc.

As much as I applaud them for getting out sometimes people underestimate their injuries. I had to make the call to mountain rescue when 3 mates were very late off the hill winter climbing. I called to make sure they were aware of the situation and to take advice on how long to wait rather than to request help. The operator was happy that I called and very happy when I called back an hour later.

tied in with mobile phones being prevalent I’m sure (which is good, but not so good). It’s probably only 12 years ago I ended up with a mobile phone, obviously now they are commonplace. That in turn leads to the map & compass /smartphone navigation issue (GPS is off to one side to some extent).

I’ve not been terribly lost in the hills before, but I have had longer than expected days, shall we say, and just get on with it was only option..

trail_rat – Member
the issue today is folk dont want to gain experiance and work their way up – folk want to do the extreme right now – folk want to go to work on monday and say i climbed XYZ and make colleagues go “wow”

Same with bikes – hiring DH rigs on mtb hols etc LOL

I did a rescue course many years ago at PyB. It was all practice based on multi-pitch routes and covered escaping the system, ascending, descending and traversing with an unconscious body (or rather your climbing partner). Learnt loads that week and really enjoyed the course.

Since then I’ve always made my belays such that escaping the system is designed in from the start, so if I or my partner does fall and knock themselves out, you can start the self-rescue that bit quicker….

tied in with mobile phones being prevalent I’m sure (which is good, but not so good). It’s probably only 12 years ago I ended up with a mobile phone, obviously now they are commonplace. That in turn leads to the map & compass /smartphone navigation issue (GPS is off to one side to some extent).

Yup good point

I remember when we only had a whistle, a compass full of bubbles and rapidly disintegrating paper map. Course back then this was all just fields there was no…yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

tied in with mobile phones being prevalent I’m sure (which is good, but not so good).

*10

when I first set off into the hills there were no mobiles, so you knew not to expect help until the people you’d told where you were going notified the mountain rescue peeps.
Also, there seems to be an increase in people just not wanting to take responsibility for their own actions, and failing to understand that, in the hills if it goes wrong it’s up to you. I mean it’s well enough advertised that the hills are dangerous places yet there are still eople who head off unprepared – remember some school teacher taking the kids for a wander in the Cairngorms wearing trainers and school blazers and getting lost. And don’t get me started on the muppets who think mountain rescue= taxi service.

that couple seemed to have heaps of experiance and so id hope knew when to make the call

+1

The number 1 rule about heading into the mountains in winter is that you’re self sufficient. But accidents do happen.

In winter, you often don’t have the luxury of time, so it’s harder to make the decision of do we/don’t we alert MRT.

Your reluctance to involve MRT (who volunteer to help people in trouble), on the basis that you feel it’s “better” to self rescue, could cost you your life. Of course, i’m not suggesting that calling MRT is better than self rescue or vice versa, merely that the decision is always going to be hard enough to make, without the stigma attached to it by armchair critics weighing in.

These things are always hard to analyse because even if you know all the facts, you weren’t there, but on the occasions where I’ve go into a bit of trouble in winter (particularly with no or little light left) I wouldn’t hesitate to call MRT if I felt that my next actions alone would dictate whether we made it out safely or not and I genuinely couldn’t guarantee that I could get us out.

I don’t think we should be trying to make people feel that calling MRT is a “weak” option. When you’re cold, tired, injured and panicked, decision making is impaired. I’d hate for someone to not call MRT on the basis that armchair critics on UKC had made them feel that it might not be appropriate.

As said above, making these sorts of decisions becomes much easier with experience, and it tends to be those with the most experience who proclaim that self rescue is best. It’s definitely NOT in many circumstances and it can be bloody hard to know when it is and when it isn’t IME.

Last year I was on pitch 9 (IV) of a route in pitch black and gale force winds. I’d been at the belay for about 90 mins and had no movement from the leader for almost an hour. No way to see him, no way to hear him, no movement or response on the rope, every part of my body numb and still with a pitch of vertical ice to climb and a huge descent ahead in the dark. Hard to keep the thoughts out of your head…how long do I leave it, even if I decide he’s out cold, how do I get to him, how do I get him down, how do I ever move off from this exposed belay with no gear or rope… etc etc. You know all the answers because you’re trained/prepared/experienced, but when it comes down to it, none are very attractive and would involve a huge amount of commitment. The mind plays tricks, it’s hard to focus on a decision so fair play to that couple who kept a cool head through what was obviously a traumatic experience

I’d bet that “self rescue” is more prevalent than you think – it’s just that it tends not to make the headlines.

FWIW, helicopter callouts were at their lowest since 2005 last year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-25650468

Trail rat has it: it’s all about keeping a calm head and realising that despite your shock and pain you are still able to move and get yourself out of it. I remember watching one of those Highland Rescue programmes and being a bit surprised at the episode where the schoolgirls on D of E experience were helicoptered off because they were a bit cold and wet and had been prevented from walking out by a swollen burn. They even had tents set up where they could have spent the night and walked out when the water level subsided. No parent, teacher or rescuer would have told them to stay put and make the best of it though, for fear of litigation.

Thus it ever was.

Attempting “self rescue”, aka being tough, resilient, self-reliant and resourceful, is just part of the mountain game. As is being careful enough to avoid objective risk and then knowing when and how to get help if it’s available.

Chapeau to the couple in question for being as tough as the hills themselves. I’d buy them a beer.

I don’t think anyone would have begrudged them a rescue had they had phone signal. Seems that after the hairy part of climbing back up they assessed that they were fine walking off. Good on them!

You absolutely cannot rely on your phone, signal in the mountains is pretty minging.

As others have said, it’s a judgement call but bear in mind you could end up in a lot more trouble trying to get yourself to safety.

A couple of treats for self-rescue fans:
Doug Scott crawling down the ogre. A very understated account!
http://www.himalayanclub.org/journal/a-crawl-down-the-ogre/

American climbers self rescuing following one breaking his ankle. A long way back to the car!

When we first started in the mountains it was a given that no-one was going to come and rescue you, you were on your own. It’s only in the past 20 years or so that people have been able to rely on a safety net whatever they choose to do.

Not quite accurate! My old team (Oldham) has been around officially since 1964 and in one form or another since the 1930s. But rescue in general has been a consideration since a major accident in the Lakes in 1903, PDRMO history & “Scafell Disaster”

That said, having been a team member and expereinced first hand, all the comments are right – rescues for simple issues more prevalent over last 20 years, people wanting to be “extreme” without having served an apprenticeship, mobile phones, etc, etc. A mate of mine is a winchman on the Lossie Sea King seen on Highland Rescue, has been for 20 years, and he says the same about the amount of times they’re called out to assist these days.

I do know of someone who fell through a cornice, and was helicoptered out. Heli stopped at the top to check on rest of the party, whereupon the casualty (as I understand it) proposed from the open heli door to his girlfriend..

I saw somebody choppered off Helvellyn having gone through, turned out he was mates with the doc who was in the big yellow taxi. We all shouted at his mates who stood on the edge of the cornice to look down…

Though fessing up I’ve had them put on standby for me once. We were fine just very overdue.

I met quite a few while living in the lakes and as above I would not hesitate to call a warning/check through to them.

[waves willy]

Broken my arm 3 times, split my forehead open(epic ammount of blood for a minute, but clotted really quickly), and given myself frost bite, never called an ambulance.

[/waves willy]

It does scare me sometimes how unprepared I am on a mountainbike. On an all day ride, one mechanical (let alone an injury) half way round could potentialy put you 2 days walk from the start!

Above all else, the folk in MR (certainly from my experience) would much rather go out and help some poor unfortunate off the hill who felt they needed help whether they were being a bit of a wuss or not, than go up on a search for a body and have to bring that down.

Whenever we’ve been on call outs based around “I’ve not got a head torch” or “My GPS has run out of battery” whilst they’re frustrating, you get on with it, and are thankful the folk in question haven’t done something more daft. Hopefully they have learnt their lesson, and chuck a few quid our way. If nothing else, it’s a trip out on the hill, with good friends, doing something we all (for the most part!) enjoy.

My old team (Oldham) has been around officially since 1964 and in one form or another since the 1930s

No doubt it has but the point I was trying to make is that it’s only relatively recently that people have had the awareness (and the technology) to call on a rescue service if they’re in trouble. MR and the great work they do was almost the stuff of legend back then (met quite a few people in Glencoe and Aviemore) and plenty of people including me headed for the hills taking care to avoid putting other people at risk.

Agreed Rocketman, but I don’t believe it’s necessarily anything to do with technology per se, more to do with today’s mentality of “well if I get it wrong somebody’ll come get me” and the want for, as I said, being extreme right away rather than serving a hill apprenticeship and building up experience. As I see it, it’s all to do with the broader changes in society these days, whereby people feel less of a sense of responsibility for themselves and more of a sense of entitlement to something for nothing/the perceived (or otherwise) nanny state looking after them.

more to do with today’s mentality of “well if I get it wrong somebody’ll come get me”

Do people honestly think like that though? I feels like more of a “youth of today” type comment than factual to me if I’m honest.

There isn’t a single person in my club who doesn’t understand the implications of something going wrong on a winter route. I’ve yet to meet someone on a route who I thought had that attitude.

But, I have met a large number of poorly prepared people in the hills walking in winter, but they don’t all appear to be novices! I was reading the Lomond MRT log a while back about a guy who kept getting rescued from the Arrochar Alps and he’d been at it a while!

Do people honestly think like that though?

I think they do. I asked a similar question a while ago about Lifeguards and there were an overwhelming amount of responses along the lines of ‘well if it goes wrong the Lifeguards will save me’

thisisnotaspoon – might be advisable to stop waving the willy if you are prone to ‘giving yourself frostbite’.

Do people honestly think like that though?

I think they do. I asked a similar question a while ago about Lifeguards and there were an overwhelming amount of responses along the lines of ‘well if it goes wrong the Lifeguards will save me’

From plenty of personal experience on a team, admittedly one I left 10 years ago but of which my brother’s still an active member and so still hear it from him/the horse’s mouth, yes they do. Although that may be more of a peculiarity to the more tourist prone areas such as the Peak and Lake Districts where it’s easier for the less well equipped/experienced to get out of their depth quickly. I suspect you’d be less likely to encounter that attitude in the Highlands.

might be advisable to stop waving the willy if you are prone to ‘giving yourself frostbite’.

Funny story there – I did once get a cold injury to my (very little because of the cold!) little chap on a trip out in the Northern Corries due to inappropriate/inadequate legwear. Fortunately only frostnip rather than ful on frostbite so recovered safely! The full-length (fnarr! fnarr!) version of the tale made an interesting addition to the best man’s speech at my wedding…

I once encountered a guy, on his phone to Llanberis MRT half way up a climb in Snowdonia. Turned out he was stuck under the crux and didn’t know how to/ couldn’t rappel or climb down. His pretty female American/Canadian ‘friend’ had done nothing like this before (I suspect he’d blown his chances there). He told us he’d been to the local climbing wall a few times 😆 . We started making preparations to all descend, then were told a heli was on it’s way, so we left them.

peter its not the folk in clubs that are the problem.

i can think of two folk i went to uni with in particular who are in it purely for the extreme factor – they go out ice climbing with very little training/thought or planning. it worrys me.

Especially when people i know who do put thought and planning into things die- alot of it is bad luck but it shouldnt be purely down to luck