Author Topic: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers  (Read 5223 times)

alan de enfield

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #15 on: 17:07:21, 05/11/18 »
Sorry, errata: that should have read '...no obvious reason to assume they are lying...'.



Inconsistency :


Paragraph 1
ALL walkers were fully equipped and had GPS...………..


Paragraph 2
Learning points are take a back up GPS or one or more of the group bring theirs.  



April

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #16 on: 18:39:46, 05/11/18 »
Navigation problems aside - did they not check the weather forecast? The usual ones we check are MWIS, Weatherline and Mountain-forecast and they all said the same for Saturday day and night, truly atrocious conditions especially on the higher fells. And they had said this for days it wasn't a last minute change of forecast.

At least it wasn't a full rescue and they could be talked down to safety, they were lucky, it could have been worse.

Warrior Training's next charity event is a trek to Everest Base Camp according to their website, I wonder how many people will sign up for this?
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Hillhiker1

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #17 on: 18:51:32, 05/11/18 »
Navigation problems aside - did they not check the weather forecast? The usual ones we check are MWIS, Weatherline and Mountain-forecast and they all said the same for Saturday day and night, truly atrocious conditions especially on the higher fells. And they had said this for days it wasn't a last minute change of forecast.

Spot on April O0 And experienced hikers should maybe have made the decision NOT to turn out. :o

April

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #18 on: 12:57:15, 06/11/18 »
experienced hikers should maybe have made the decision NOT to turn out. :o

Absolutely. I've been reading the comments on Wasdale Mountain Rescue fb page from some of the people who were part of the group who got lost and they don't seem to be taking on board that the weather didn't get worse; it was already atrocious. I hope they do learn from this and take note of the weather conditions properly and make a wiser decision next time.
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Lakeland Lorry

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #19 on: 13:56:48, 06/11/18 »
So, despite one of the organisers protesting that the weather was fine when they set off; and that everyone within the group were well equipped and experienced; and that the MRT spokesman is telling porkies, these are interesting comments posted by the partner of one of the women in the group on the Wasdale MRT FB page:


yes this was Jenna after trying to convince her for near on a week that this was a seriously foolish idea due to the time of year and the weather conditions, she still decided to go along with the group from Warrior Gym after previously failing to complete this ridiculous challenge just only four weeks ago , I tried to tell her this is a life threatening exercise for beginner walkers who had very little experience of these mountains , when she came home she didn't even tell me they had to be rescued, I later found out today on the BBC News.
I also agree with the people who have commented above that this activity by gym goers who think just because they can squat a little weight and exercise for an hour non stop doesn't mean there minds are automatically qualified to navigate themselves around the three highest mountains in the U.K. in record time of 24 hours within the winter months, this is a serious incident that I'm so thankful to the rescue team for bringing the mother of my little girl down to safety .

Hopefully the word of this spreads far a field and is a massive lesson to other people out there and lives will be protected from this type of challenge.


Enjoy what's beyond your back gardens, the Snowdonia Range is my back garden and I've been exploring it for years , it is a amazing place to be explored at the correct time of day but still just as easy to get lost without the correct equipment so always stay safe and take advice from people who know what there talking about .

ONE LIFE , LIVE IT........STAY ALIVE !

And another comment:

Everybody wasn't equipped Ricky Nicholson and not everybody knew how to read a paper map along with the use of a compass , everybody wasn't familiar with the mountains neither , these mountains aren't Moel Famau or Moel Arthur where some of these people practiced a couple of times before entering this Challenge, this is called the the 3 Peak Challenge for a reason, it's a Challenge not a walk in the Park and not everybody can do it, people who do this challenge if there soft enough to try in record time would at least be familiar with all 3 mountains to begin with .

Glad everybody had the knowledge to stick together this time and everybody got down safely in the end.

God forbid if there was any fatalities.

Hope this has been a big lesson learnt by Warrior Gym



Innominate Man

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #20 on: 14:39:05, 06/11/18 »
I've been keeping quiet as the story unfolded but these last few posts show the real situation and not the preferred version that the organisers would like the wider World to know.


One fact is being overlooked:- It was mentioned on Grough that this wasn't a team call out and that they had been talked off the mountain by the Wasdale MRT base.
How come, if these well equipped - experienced walkers who some say had the right gear and had been up there several weeks before to recce the route, couldn't recognise any navigational features to check against the aids they were equipped with: But, a handler in the MRT base (who had no visual on them) was able to talk them down ?
This disparity is arguably indicative of the level of preparation.


Although we can appreciate the MRT had a fix on their position, there must still have been some amount of 'latitude' which only the experience of the MRT could interpret from conversations with the walkers into a meaningful understanding of where they were and where they needed to walk to get onto a path/safety.
Otherwise, they could have been guided off a very steep drop or at the least - be waked around in circles until coming to a recognisable place/path.
The MRT handler must have been very confident in knowing where these people were, otherwise you'd have expected a full call out. It shows the unbelievable level of knowledge the local MRTs possess to be able to do this. Full credit to them.
Not being in that party leaves it difficult for the rest of us to know what they were going through and why they did certain things, but some aspects can only lead to certain conclusions.









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Geoffrey Winthrop Young

andybr

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #21 on: 16:01:01, 06/11/18 »
I've been keeping quiet as the story unfolded but these last few posts show the real situation and not the preferred version that the organisers would like the wider World to know.


One fact is being overlooked:- It was mentioned on Grough that this wasn't a team call out and that they had been talked off the mountain by the Wasdale MRT base.
How come, if these well equipped - experienced walkers who some say had the right gear and had been up there several weeks before to recce the route, couldn't recognise any navigational features to check against the aids they were equipped with: But, a handler in the MRT base (who had no visual on them) was able to talk them down ?
This disparity is arguably indicative of the level of preparation.


Although we can appreciate the MRT had a fix on their position, there must still have been some amount of 'latitude' which only the experience of the MRT could interpret from conversations with the walkers into a meaningful understanding of where they were and where they needed to walk to get onto a path/safety.
Otherwise, they could have been guided off a very steep drop or at the least - be waked around in circles until coming to a recognisable place/path.
The MRT handler must have been very confident in knowing where these people were, otherwise you'd have expected a full call out. It shows the unbelievable level of knowledge the local MRTs possess to be able to do this. Full credit to them.
Not being in that party leaves it difficult for the rest of us to know what they were going through and why they did certain things, but some aspects can only lead to certain conclusions.


This is purely a guess but I suspect that if the group were trying to descend via the side of Piers Gill the rescue team would advise them to go back over Lingmell Col and down the "tourist" route. Not that that excuses the apparently woeful lack of preparation.

Lakeland Lorry

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #22 on: 16:21:06, 06/11/18 »
Looks like the postings on the Wasdale MRT FB page have all been deleted.   


 ::) ::)

rural roamer

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #23 on: 18:28:28, 06/11/18 »
Not surprised it was deleted, there was a lot of mud-slinging going on

April

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #24 on: 08:27:55, 07/11/18 »
I saw a post from one of the group who were helped . She was thanking the MRT team member who helped them down "for doing her job". I wonder if she realised this was voluntary help and the team member gave up a nights sleep to help them all for free?
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Maggot

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #25 on: 22:33:59, 15/11/18 »
Sorry, errata: that should have read '...no obvious reason to assume they are lying...'.


I am kind of with you on this.  Why would they make it all up?  They would clearly get caught out.


I wonder if the story had been "Experienced walkers find themselves out of their depth and get a bit of remote help" would have grabbed the headlines as well though?

Lakeland Lorry

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Re: another truly avoidable rescue, 10 brain dead walkers
« Reply #26 on: 08:31:05, 16/11/18 »
I wonder if the story had been "Experienced walkers find themselves out of their depth and get a bit of remote help" would have grabbed the headlines as well though?


Having read most of posts on FB, before they were deleted, I'm not convinced at all that they were experienced walkers.   This is what the partner, of one of the females on the event, posted on FB:


.......yes this was Jenna after trying to convince her for near on a week that this was a seriously foolish idea due to the time of year and the weather conditions, she still decided to go along with the group from Warrior Gym after previously failing to complete this ridiculous challenge just only four weeks ago , I tried to tell her this is a life threatening exercise for beginner walkers who had very little experience of these mountains , when she came home she didn't even tell me they had to be rescued, I later found out today on the BBC News.   I also agree with the people who have commented above that this activity by gym goers who think just because they can squat a little weight and exercise for an hour non stop doesn't mean there minds are automatically qualified to navigate themselves around the three highest mountains in the U.K. in record time of 24 hours within the winter months, this is a serious incident that I'm so thankful to the rescue team for bringing the mother of my little girl down to safety.






 

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