The path junction on Ingleborough where the Horton path, on the right, leaves the Chapel-le-Dale route. Photo: Bob Smith/grough

A rescue team in the Yorkshire Dales was kept busy over the bank holiday weekend, with callouts to injured walkers, climbers, lost Three Peaks challengers and a recalcitrant sheep.

On Monday the Cave Rescue Organisation was alerted about 2.30pm after a 27-year-old climber was injured by a falling rock while descending after a climb on Giggleswick Scar.

The man suffered a head injury in the incident. A team spokesperson said: “His climbing partner called for help and administered what first aid she could on the steep, rocky, wooded hillside.”

Ambulance paramedics joined the first team members to reach the injured climber and a doctor from the Yorkshire Air Ambulance went to the site.

The climber was packed into a casualty bag then stretchered down the wooded scree slope to a golf club car park. He was then taken across the road to the helicopter, which was waiting on the course, then airlifted to hospital for further treatment.

While the rescue was underway, its volunteers were alerted by ambulance staff to an incident on the Ingleton waterfalls trail where a 45-year-old woman had slipped on wet rocks below Thornton Force and injured her ankle.

The spokesperson said: “Some members were diverted from the Giggleswick incident and others from an ‘awareness’ event. They immobilised the ankle then stretchered the casualty to a team Land Rover, which drove her to the roadhead on the Kingsdale road.”

An ambulance then took her to hospital.

It was the team’s second visit to the Ingleton waterfalls that weekend. On Sunday a 37-year-old man slipped on the path, also below Thornton Force, suffering a painful ankle injury.

Team members were called out about 3.35pm. They gave the walker pain relief, splinted his leg, then stretchered him to a CRO Land Rover, which took him to a waiting ambulance at the roadhead. His family members were driven back to their caravan.

In the evening, team members were called out to another injured walker who had slipped on the path between Pen-y-ghent and Horton Scar Lane, sustaining an ankle injury, which rescuers said he bore stoically.

The team used the CRO’s Honda Pioneer all-terrain vehicle to convey three members and an ambulance paramedic to the site while other volunteers waited with Land Rovers at the top of the lane on standby with more equipment.

The spokesperson said: “After assessment by the paramedic, the casualty’s lower leg was splinted and he was assisted on to the back seats of the Honda. Back down at the top of the lane, he and his family were helped into a Land Rover and all returned to Horton.

“There, the paramedics used a more compact splint so that the family could drive home and the patient could visit his local hospital the following day.”

As team members were leaving the scene at Pen-y-ghent about 9.40pm, they were alerted to two women lost but uninjured in fading light on Ingleborough while undertaking the Yorkshire Three Peaks.

Police controllers put the pair’s position between Gaping Gill and Bar Pot, on the Clapham path, which is off the Three Peaks route.

The spokesperson said: “While most members who had been on Pen-y-ghent waited at CRO base in case they were needed, two members took a team Land Rover to the top of Long Lane, Clapham, and the Honda Pioneer to the Bar Pot stiles, then walked to the ‘lost’ pair.

“All returned to Clapham by vehicle before one team member took the two walkers back to Horton car park, on his way home.

“The path across the Ingleborough summit plateau divides into three at the eastern end. It is not uncommon for Three Peaks walkers who are unfamiliar with the area to turn right too soon and head due south to Little Ingleborough and Gaping Gill when they should continue east to find the path across Simon Fell Breast, towards Horton.

“Being driven back to Horton isn’t completing the challenge.”

Team members began a long day on Sunday with a callout to a stranded sheep that had been on a ledge on a rockface at Mealbank Quarry in Ingleton. After the animal had been on the ledge for five days, the farmer requested the CRO’s help.

The spokesperson said: “A small team lowered one member down to the ledge with a bag of sheep-nuts in one hand and a large canvas sack in the other.

“The shaking of the bag seemed to remind the sheep that it was hungry and, as it didn’t like the look of its ‘rescuer’ or the sack, it scrambled rapidly up to the field at the top, to resume its grazing.”