One of the busiest Mountain Rescue teams in the UK is the Llanberis team whose area of responsibility includes Snowdon. This mountain of course is very popular and therefore accounts for most of their callouts and work.
On Thursday 30th August they answered a callout for a family of 5 who had taken a wrong turn at Bwlch y Moch. This resulted in them being on the path up the east ridge of Crib Goch. This is a mistake that quite a few people make, although it is clearly signposted.
Crib Goch is an amazing knife edge ridge walk, but it is not for the feint hearted or the unprepared and is the scene for many rescues and incidents.
To get an idea of what it is like you can see a video of one of my solo trips on Crib Goch by clicking here.
The family continued and did make it some distance along the ridge, but two of the youngsters in the group did not want to continue any further. Possibly a pretty good decision.
Mountain Rescue were called and five team members where dropped onto the ridge by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency Rescue 936 helicopter. Some of the family members who were happy to move were taken a little further along the ridge to a safer spot while the others in the group were winched onboard the helicopter. After dropping the family at the base in in Nant Peris, Rescue 936 was returned to pick up the Mountain Rescue members too.
A video of the helicopter rescue can be seen here.
The Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team is a fully voluntary organisation which responds to those in need on Snowdon and the surrounding mountains. The Team is on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and relies entirely on donations from members of the public to carry out this essential life-saving rescue service.
You can support the Llanberis Team by clicking here.