UKC

My word. Can someone please explain to me how something like that can happen?
Flabbergasted.

In reply to Blizzard:
What happened, i saw the link to the news story,but can't find it on UKC anymore??

In reply to DreadyCraig:

Here is a link:

http://www.ukhillwalking.com/news/item.php?id=68127%3Cbr%20/%3E

Bascially a group of 9 people were out of their depth and had to be rescued in bad weather. People can be so stupid.

In reply to Blizzard:

Here's the BBC link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22884707

In reply to Blizzard:

What a great picture in that link !

Personally I wouldn't be too judgemental - most people who actually try anything new for them will make an unwise (in retrospect) call

In reply to GrahamD: I agree.

I'm sure that 99% of us have been "out of our depth" before and those of us that are here to speak about it have gotten away with it. It was much easier to get away with it before the internet as well I reckon...

Back in my day I never called the rescue services (no mobile phones) and didn't have the internet to broadcast my f*ck-ups before I'd even gotten off the hill. Perhaps I'm lucky to be alive, but I had fun and have some great stories that I share with friends, not the whole world.

In reply to GrahamD:

Rescuers said both incidents were unnecessary with "pre-planning and thought".

How does "pre-planning" differ from "planning".

In reply to Blizzard:

It's not that hard to understand is it? Under estimate and under prepare for the weather, under estimate the challenge (mental or physical), over estimate group's fitness, somebody tires, picks up a minor injury or loses confidence, group slows, gets cold and loses confidence... Help needed. Avoidable but not necessarily the result of any single awful decision, potentially just a lining up of several slightly dubious choices.

Most of us have got away with (and likely enjoyed afterwards) similar or worse miscalculations more than once. Perhaps I should rephrase that, with hindsight I know I have.
jk

In reply to Martin1978:

Absolutely, I remember a time many years ago when I was first into hill walking and i underestimated a walk on New Years day. I was with my wife, having walked to Dollywaggon Pike from Patterdale and over to Helveynn and it started to go dark. I was looking for a shorter way off the hill and with my wife looking on, I started to edge my way onto Striding Edge with no winter gear, knowledge of cornices or actually any real sense of the potential dangers.

Something innate told me that I was out of my depth and fear took hold when a chunk of snow broke off. I quickly gathered my senses climbed back up, told my wife that we werent going that way and we eventually got back to Glenridding just after dark.

This was a scary moment but one which taught me a valuable lesson.

In reply to Blizzard: Many years ago I arrived at Bwlch Moch on a cold winter day. There was a fresh dusting of snow from about a couple of hundred feet above me and all sources of water were well and truly frozen. I was confronted by a father and son who asked me in rather vague terms about ascending Crib Goch. They were wearing summer style boots and neither carried an ice axe and appeared not to have crampons. Their demeanour suggested scant knowledge of the mountain conditions. I suggested that they would be unwise to venture above the snow line, least of all on Crib Goch. They scuttled off down towards Pen y Pass.

Without being melodramatic I sometimes think I may have saved their lives.

In reply to Blizzard:

It was a charity fundraiser involving 17 people, 13 were novices, 9 of them got caught out.

You have to ask who exactly was in charge. Personally I get nervous when my group is bigger than 4 and 12 is my absolute limit so long as there are only a fee novices.

Is Crib Goch a place for novices?

I think this 'charity' red mist comes down. They've planned for weeks and fundraised so they're going. Irrespective of conditions.

My friend was involved in a Three Peaks last year in June where the group he was with were woefully under prepared. Some of them hadn't walked for years and had forgotten most of the basic safety on the hills stuff that experienced walkers do in a group without thinking.

Good to see it all ended well.

In reply to Blizzard:
Crib Goch isn’t a difficult ridge to run or walk along if you have head for heights, people / team should stand at Bwlch y Moch and look up to Crib Goch and make a judgement Yes / No.

Perhaps some leaders put pressure on the unprepared.

The leader should be responsible not just in getting the people up but also down, the mountain rescue are responsible in getting the unable not the unwilling down.

In reply to DancingOnRock:


depends on the weather and the novice. I would like to see someone on a general off path bimble beforehand eg if they cant walk across a football pitch without falling over I think it would be best to give it a miss.
It isnt clear how organised it was. Whether just a bunch of mates or a hired in organiser. If the latter they should be answerable.

In reply to Gordonbp: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/latestnews/view/319305/Man-seriously-hurt-in-rid...

Clicked this on the BBC one, quite harsh to arrest the guy after falling of the ridge....(Daily starnow an automated internet only paper?

In reply to wiwwim:

Haha...someone didn't proof read

In reply to dissonance: It was a kind of rhetorical question. Was it a university group?

In reply to Blizzard:
I can understand - I climbed Crib Goch a few years back, and the weather forecasts we were given proved far more changeable than we realised. We were very underprepared in 60mph winds and driving rain. Both ended up close to hypothermic, but being young, naive, and frankly terrified, we opted to just keep pushing on rather than stopping in one place. Personally I thought if I stopped, I'd never get down, so we carried it through. It happens, and I learnt a heck of a lot from it (namely, don't leave your insulated jacket in the hostel) - poor judgement, we were lucky this time.
In a large group it's even more understandable if people want to 'push' for the challenge - you're more likely to get stuck, particularly with novices.

In reply to tiffanykate12:

I like the "several were inexperinced walkers" bit, had they just graduated from toddling??

In reply to tiffanykate12:

<In a large group it's even more understandable if people want to 'push' for the challenge

Is it? It strikes me as less understandable, or at least more undesirable.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: That's where the experience comes in. A large group need to have a proper leader with the abiltiy to say no, we're not going. Otherwise you tend to get a sheep mentality with everyone following the loudest.

In reply to lowersharpnose:

Ever heard the expression "Failing to Pre-plan is pre planning to prepare failing" it's gotten me out of many a pickle

In reply to Blizzard:

When I was about 15, two coach loads of us(about 60-70 lads?) went from school in Liverpool and did Crib Goch. I doubt if more than 20% will have had boots. As I recall there were about 6 teachers. I remember looking back from close to Snowdon summit and seeing the crocodile still stretching over the ridge! We all lived.

Not of your 'Elf'n'Safety in those days!

In reply to grubus: Indeed. That'll be the HSE that was formed in 1833 then? You're pretty old mate. Do you think that the teachers just hoped it would be a good day? The fact that you could see a string of kids stretching out across the mountain suggests weather that you could fly a helicopter in, not the type of weather this group was caught out in.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

About 1961 Yes, it was a lovely day! Several comparable trips weren't however.
In the case of this recent group, surely the problem wasn't lack of planning but being unable to change plans when the weather turned out poor.

In reply to grubus: In my experience it unwilling rather than unable.

If you have a proper leader who is prepared to say "Sorry lads. I know we've been training and planning for this for months and have raised lots of money. It would be best if we postpone the trip." you're good. If you don't then this is the result.

School teachers in the 60s wouldn't have had that pressure. It would have been (like it is now): Travel to North Wales for the weekend, wake up Saturday, check weather forecast, assess group, pick a suitable walk.

H&S has little to do with it. Nowadays you do the same, it's just that there is more paperwork. People don't like paperwork so the easy thing to do is not go, and blame H&S rather than just do the paperwork.

I'm a great believer in "If you want to do something, you will, if you don't, you won't."