Incident Report #73 2007

Shouts for help were reported on Gimmer Crag by passing walkers. A couple of team members went to check them out and heard them clearly. We were unable to establish what the problem was, so the remainder of the team were paged to assist. We made our way up with crag and first aid gear, and eventually made voice contact with two climbers, who were uninjured but cragfast without lights. Sometime during the night two men were reported overdue with friends at the Old Dungeon Ghyll. We were able to establish that it was the same two. A team member was belayed across a wet and precarious series of ledges to the men. They were then lowered to the bottom of the crag. The team member then made his way back to the rest of us and we descended, meeting up with the two men and other team members at the crag bottom, then descended to the valley floor. Somewhere around 2.30am the weather turned thoroughly unpleasant, with strong winds and heavy rain squalls. Team members were finally able to fall into their beds around 5am. It was a long night. We were assisted by Kendal MRT, who helped us on the crag, and also provided a back up plan, whereby they went up to the top of the crag and abseiled down to them, if we hadn't succeeded with the traverse method. Hopefully climbers all over the country, and walkers as well, will be checking batteries, or rushing out to the shops to buy head torches as the nights draw in. Here's hoping!