John D. Burns talks to Kev Mitchell about the vital work carried out by mountain rescue teams in the Scottish hills and gets his expert advice on keeping safe in the mountains.
Kev Mitchell
Everyone who walks in Scotland’s hills relies on the back up of Scottish Mountain Rescue. None of us is invincible. A simple slip can lead to a broken ankle, a minor navigational error could lead to a cold night out on a mountainside. Mountains are, by definition, hazardous environments. It is the volunteer teams that stand by to rescue all of who have saved a great many lives.
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Scottish Mountain Rescue (SMR) represents 25 Mountain Rescue Teams (MRTs) made up of highly trained volunteers who are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to respond to emergencies and carry out a specialist search and rescue service in the mountains and remote communities in Scotland to keep people safe and help people if and when they get into difficulty. Together we are here to save lives in the outdoors.
SMR and our 25 MRTs are all charities. In addition to representing these member MRTs, SMR also serves three Police Scotland MRTs and one RAF MRT. We are proud to have more than 850 dedicated volunteer team members who are always prepared and willing to drop everything they are doing to assist total strangers.
The remote nature of the Scottish mountains, the terrain and the prevailing weather mean that many search and rescue operations in Scotland simply cannot be carried out without large numbers of volunteers able to go out on foot and who can be mobilised quickly. It often is simply not possible to search for people by helicopter in Scotland, because low clouds often prevent the helicopters from flying.
These volunteers are the foundation of the mountain rescue community. Each MRT and team member saves lives in the Scottish outdoors.
Ben Nevis
Kev gave some great advice in the podcast, here are some of the links he mentioned.
Route cards provided by Mountaineering Scotland
OS Locate is an App available via App stores.
Be Avalanche Aware has lots of useful information Be Avalanche Aware (sais.gov.uk)
Text 999 Alert Details of this service are mwis.org.uk/blog/post/999-text-service
