- Incident
- 44 in 2006
- Type
- Callout — Lost
- Location
- Piers Gill, Scafell Pike
- Tagged
- Three Peaks
‘999’ call taken by the police for three male walkers in their 30’s who had left Brackenclose, Wasdale head at 11.00 p.m. the previous evening to climb Scafell Pike. The three men were attempting the 3 Peaks challenge and had already climbed Ben Nevis earlier in the day. They gave a description of their location in relationship to a waterfall and a stream (in flood) heading in a north-easterly direction. There were two possible locations, Greta Gill or Piers Gill. In the end they were located at 8:30 hrs some distance from the Piers Gill waterfall as they had decided to move higher up the fell. They were walked off the mountain although one of them had a slight ankle injury that had been troubling him on Ben Nevis. The incident was closed mid morning with around 10 team members deployed on the hill. A number of groups were met whilst the team was searching, all doing three peaks events and many ill prepared and ill equipped for the severe weather conditions that had been forecasted for the weekend.. There appears to be an increasing, and worrying trend for Three Peakers getting themselves into difficulty and calling for mountain rescue to come and get them with little consideration for the trouble it causes the team members. The concern being that these very frequent searches ( 4 three peak incidents in 48 hours) are draining the team’s resources and compromising the team’s ability to fully respond to serious injury incidents.
Incident started at 04:20 and ended at 10:00 making 5.7 hrs in total. There were 10 Wasdale team members involved. Total rescuer hours: 57
