Callout 04 in 2008

Incident

101 in 2007

Type

Callout — Lost

Location

Upper Eskdale

Other Agencies

Lake District Mountain Rescue Search Dogs

Cumbria Police paged the team to assist a male and female couple who had made a navigational error whilst descending Scafell Pike. The couple in their 40’s were from Shropshire. They had a GPS but gave their position in Degrees and minutes (Latitude/Longitude) – The team leader had these converted by the Liverpool coastguard which put them in the Scar Lathing area in upper Eskdale. Whilst lost , they had met up with another pair of male walkers, again in their 40’s, who had made a similar error and were descending into Eskdale rather than Wasdale (although they did not know that as they became lost. They had turned left at the stretcher box (a typical error) and descended via the side of a large waterfall [Cam Spout] until they came across a group of very large stones [Sampson’s Stones] then came across a wall and became lost and separated from the pair of male walkers as they gained height on the fell. Whilst the team leader established where they where, the police paged the team again for a second ‘999’ call. This was the lost pair of male walkers who had now phoned in (see incident Callout 05 in 2008 ) to the police. As the team leader was pretty sure of the location, he and a SARDA dog handler another team member set off from Eskdale to run up the fell and walk them off. Another SARDA dog handler/team member with her search dog and navigator set off up the zig zags from Taw House Farm as a back up. A radio relay was set up on Hardknott Pass with a base station created at one of the team members houses in Eskdale where additional resources could be called out if necessary. The missing pair were located by the SARDA search dog ‘a classic indication and find’ and walked off to Brotherikeld and transported to the Strands in Wasdale. The other pair were located shortly thereafter very close to the first pair and escorted off the fell and transported back to Wasdale Head (all in team members personal vehicles). Incident closed at around 11.00 p.m. with 6 team members involved.