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IT was a long time ago but I remember the day vividly. I was climbing a route on Ben Nevis when I fell and broke my ankle. My companions helped me down to the CIC Hut under the Ben’s north face and I was airlifted in a few minutes to Fort William.
From there, members of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team gave me a short ride to the Belford Hospital, then it was up to Raigmore in Inverness to get the ankle pinned. I was back climbing again in around eight weeks.
The incident gave me first-hand experience of mountain rescue – reinforced some years later when I was involved in making a TV film about the Lochaber team.
So I’ve been rescued – it happens to the best of mountaineers – and my opening gambit to Mick Holmes, leader of Dundonnell MRT, is to ask if he’s been rescued too.
"No, fortunately," he says, "though there are members of the team who have but they like to keep it quiet.
"It’s the reason most people want to be in a rescue team, because they realise that at some point it might be them."
Dundonnell may not rank among the busiest teams, such as Lochaber and Cairngorm, but it has a vast area to cover.
Mick estimates it’s around 2,500 square miles, with some very wild territory and a large number of Munros – among them the Affric hills, the Beinn Dearg and Fisherfield groups and mighty An Teallach.
"If you’re asking me which is the most problematic hill for us, it comes in peaks and troughs," says Mick, a plain-speaking Yorkshireman who has lived in Ullapool for the past 12 years and led the team for four. "We’ve had phases on Beinn Dearg, where people seem to get lost. But then we’ll have nothing on there for years and have lots of callouts on the Fannichs instead."
Mick and I are talking following publication of the Mountain Rescue Committee for Scotland’s annual incident statistics, listing activity team by team, the nature of incidents, the number of man-hours involved and so on.
In 2011, 693 people were assisted, of whom 270 were injured and 52 died – a slight increase on the 2010 figures. In Dundonnell’s case, the team dealt with 18 incidents, involving 940 man hours.
Looking through the statistics, the
report highlights quite clearly the most common cause of mountain rescue callouts. "Continuing the trends of previous years, summer hillwalking is the activity which results in by far the highest number of incidents," it states.
"That’s definitely true for us," confirms Mick. "Most people who go out in winter are more prepared for it. And because of the winter conditions, people tend to turn round if they think they’re getting into trouble."
So what’s his assessment of the underlying causes for the team being called out?
"There are obviously incidents where somebody has had an accident," he says. "Most of the navigation things are people just not being prepared. They’ve not done their homework on the area. Sometimes they’ve not even got a map, or if they’ve got a map they’ve not got a compass.
"If they’ve got a compass they don’t know what it does, or they’ve got a sat nav out of the car.
"Mostly people are ill-prepared, they’ve taken on too much. For our patch, a lot of the walks are very long from start to finish. It’s a different kind of walking up here.
"I cut my teeth in the Lake District where there are lots of paths. Up here there aren’t so many, just maybe a few stalkers’ paths, and once you’re off them you’re roughing it.
"You can quite easily overestimate your abilities if you’ve never been to Scotland before – especially in the north."
Mick lays great stress on navigation as a necessary skill. "It’s extremely important – it’s such a basic thing," he says. "But it’s easy to sound like you’re lecturing people – saying you should have a map and a compass and know how to use them. Then they’ll switch off and not listen to you."
British mountain rescue teams are run on a voluntary basis, unlike the Alps, and calls have been made for Britain to go the same way with a professional service.
Mick is scathing about the suggestion. "I feel very uncomfortable about people having to be insured to enjoy themselves on the hill," he says.
"It’s the ethos more than anything. As soon as you’ve got insurance involved, the only people who are going to make money out of that are insurance companies – it will not make the activity any safer.
"You would end up getting rescue teams on a professional footing and I think a lot of people would leave mountain rescue if it became professional."
There’s no hint of that happening yet, but it doesn’t mean voluntary rescue teams are any less proficient. They train regularly and they know their patch.
You really are safe in their hands if you need to be rescued.
HOW TO AVOID BEING RESCUED
? Choose a route within your capabilities.
? Have the right kit. Prevent getting cold, so have clothes that keep the rain and wind out; a good pair of boots; a hat and gloves, even in summer; a map and compass and know how to use them.
? A mobile phone, just in case, though don’t rely on it too heavily. You don’t always get a signal in the mountains.
? Don’t rely totally on a GPS. Use it in conjunction with the map. If it’s really cold batteries will go flat quickly. New GPS devices have mapping on them, but they only display a small area. It can be very useful to see the bigger area if you’re unsure of your position.
