Team members take care of the injured climber at the foot of the crag. Photo: Keswick MRT
An injured climber was rescued and five others who were stuck were brought to safety in a night operation lasting almost four hours on a Borrowdale crag.
Keswick Mountain Rescue Team was alerted about 6.25pm on Saturday to reports that a walker had fallen at Black Crag and suffered a dislocated shoulder.
A team spokesperson said: “This turned out to be a fallen climber with a dislocated shoulder, above the second pitch on Troutdale Pinnacle, at the start of the traverse, who had four others with him, who were cragfast.
“In addition, a sixth climber was stuck at the other end of the traverse below the pinnacle itself.”
Five team members set off immediately in one of its Land Rovers with equipment to begin rescuing the climber, while eight more went to the scene in another vehicle and individual team members made their own way to the site, east of Grange.
The Keswick MRT spokesperson said: “In the meantime, the team received an offer of assistance from the Coastguard helicopter to try and winch the group off the crag.
“Given that this would have needed a winching distance of over 60m, and as the team were already on the crag, they were persuaded to come and stand by to assist with the solo cragfast climber, once the team had evacuated the others.
The Coastguard helicopter approaches the crag to winch off the solo cragfast climber. Photo: Keswick MRT
“In what turned out to be a reasonably slick rigging operation, the casualty was recovered by a team member down to the foot of the crag in about 90 minutes, and then taken down to an ambulance.”
The other cragfast climbers near the injured climber were lowered to the ground before the Caernarfon-based helicopter rescued the final stuck climber.
The Keswick team spokesperson said: “Rescue 936 swooped in to skilfully lift off the last one, a manoeuvre that was not without a fair degree of risk, given the proximity of the rockface.
“He was flown to Crow Park, Keswick and dropped off at Keswick’s base to await the arrival of his mates. This action saved the team a considerable amount of time, for which we were very grateful.”
The rescue involved 21 volunteers from Keswick MRT and lasted more than 3¾ hours.
