Throstlegarth, Upper Eskdale – Sun 17th Sep 2000

Incident

36 in 2000

Type

Callout — Overdue

Location

Throstlegarth, Upper Eskdale

Call via the Wasdale Head Hotel to report that a man who was walking from Elterwater had not turned up. His girl friend had rung to see if he’d arrived and why he hadn’t rung her. His route would have taken him over Crinkle Crags, Bow Fell, Esk Pike and Scafell Pike, before dropping down to Wasdale Head. He was described as being 52 yrs old, healthy and reasonably well equipped and experienced. Having discussed the case with Whitehaven Police and one of the Deputy Team Leaders, we felt it appropriate to wait until first light before starting a search for him. (Then we got the incident described above.) 2000-09-18 0700Just before 7am on the Monday, I started getting other Teams involved, calling on Millom, Furness, Keswick, Langdale and SARDA dogs. At 8am I also put another bleep out for Wasdale MRT. I think we got 12 people from Millom, 12 from Furness, 11 from Keswick, 11 from Langdale, 5 dogs and about 12 from Wasdale – even though most of us had already been out all night. The missing person was found at the Throstlegarth Gorge at 10am. He had spent the night high on Scafell Pike and was cold and wet, although he was able to walk without assistance. He had made a navigational error the previous evening and had not intended to drop into Eskdale! He was looked after by one of the SARDA dog handlers and the Teams were all stood down again. Wasdale MRT closed the Base at mid day.