- Incident
- 47 in 2008
- Type
- Alert — Overdue
- Location
- Upper Eskdale
The team were contacted by Cumbria Police concerning a group of 7 overdue 17 yr old students and their 34 yr old supervisor doing a two-night walk for their Duke Of Edinburgh Gold award. The group had set off from the Wasdale NT Campsite at 16:00 and planned to walk over Mickledore and down into Eskdale where they intended to camp at Lingcove Bridge at approximately 22:00. Two assessors were waiting in the Great Moss area and became concerned when the group had not appeared by 21:15. They checked Lingcove Bridge on their way out and established that the overdue party were not at Lingcove Bridge at 22:15. Later one of the assessors rang 999 and subsequently spoke to the acting team leader who ascertained that the overdue party had full camping gear, no known injuries and no known medical conditions. He also confirmed that the party had a defined protocol for getting help in the event of an incident and that the group had the sufficient numbers and the ability to navigate in the dark i.e. they could go for help if a member of the group was in trouble. As a result it was decided the party was unlikely to be at risk and that the acting team leader would wait until 08:00 which would give the party 4.5hrs of daylight to get out for help in the event that they needed to do so. At 08:00 the acting team leader spoke to the informant and confirmed that there had still been no contact with the overdue party. The informant and another assessor then walked up to Great Moss and Lingcove Bridge and met up with the overdue party who had spent the night camping on Great Moss. Police incident log closed at 10:24 with 2 team members involved by telephone.
Incident started at 01:39 and ended at 10:24 making 8.8 hrs in total. There were 2 Wasdale team members involved and the incident occured at NY21892 05779 (altitude 380 m). Total rescuer hours: 18
