Upper Eskdale – Sun 5th Jan 2025

An alert was received this morning from Cumbria Police about a party of five walkers who were reporting themselves close to hypothermia. The information came via an iPhone emergency satellite message so further information was initially quite limited. Helpfully an exact location was obtained, although this was in a remote area in Upper Eskdale. Further information received via another message indicated that one person was also ill, and another had injured his ankle. They had misnavigated off Scafell Pike summit, attempting to return to Seathwaite.

The Team Leader swiftly made a full callout and asked an advance party of two to make their way as quickly as possible to the location. A Coastguard helicopter from Prestwick (Rescue 199) also responded quickly. The assumption at this stage was that the walkers had been lost since the previous afternoon.

Further iPhone emergency messages indicated the party was moving down the valley towards the road, although for a time it was unclear whether this was the whole group or just one or two people.

Thankfully the advance party had not travelled too far when they met up with the party of five walking out. All were safe and able to complete the journey to the road and then to a local hostelry, where they could organise a taxi back to Borrowdale.

The debrief ascertained that the group had set off from North Yorkshire at midnight, arrived at Seathwaite and then set off on their walk at 4am. They had made the summit of Scafell Pike but then found themselves in Upper Eskdale; cold, wet and concerned for their safety. They were not equipped properly for full winter conditions on the high fells, and were also inexperienced. At times they were waist deep in snow. To their credit, they fully acknowledged their misjudgment in this attempt and were humble and thankful for the help, fully aware this could have ended with a much worse outcome.

Thanks again to the support from Coastguard helicopter Rescue199.