Calder Valley SRT's Challenge team: top, Howard Barton and Alistair Morris; bottom: Tim Ingram and Steve Westwood

Four rescue team members will push themselves to the limit in an effort to raise cash to boost their organisation’s ability to respond to future flooding events.

The Calder Valley Search and Rescue Team members will take part in the gruelling Spine Mountain Rescue Challenge in a few days’ time.

The event involves running more than 100 miles over three days along the Pennine Way.

Money raised by team members Steve Westwood, Alistair Morris, Howard Barton and Tim Ingram will go towards buying water rescue gear and training to increase the volunteer team’s capabilities in situations such as the flooding that hit the Calder Valley SRT’s home town of Mytholmroyd recently.

The team said: “Currently, CVSRT has eight specially trained swiftwater rescue technicians ready to deploy within the Calder Valley and, as was most recently seen in the press, helping residents in Cumbria and York.

“As a guide, each swiftwater rescue technician costs about £1,800 to train and equip. It is our aim that we are able to significantly increase the teams rescue capability over the next 12 months.”

The four rescuers will join runners from other mountain rescue teams from across the country in tackling the challenge, starting on Saturday 9 January from Edale in the Peak District.

The inaugural Spine Mountain Rescue Challenge is being run as part of the Montane Spine Race, dubbed Britain’s most brutal race, which entails competitors tackling the whole 431km (268-mile) Pennine Way in winter conditions in a week or less.

The mountain rescuers will follow the shorter Spine Challenger route along the Pennine Way, a distance of 174km (108 miles), ending at Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales.

Anyone wishing to donate to the Calder Valley SRT challengers can do so online or by contacting the team direct.