Climbers rescued from Ben Nevis

Published on 18/03/2013 01:30

A FATHER and son were among three Scottish climbers airlifted off Britain’s highest mountain yesterday, in an eight-hour rescue hampered by low cloud and blizzard conditions.

The trio survived the night on Ben Nevis after huddling together to keep warm near the summit of Ben Nevis. Rescuers had deemed it “too dangerous” to make an attempt to reach them in blizzard conditions.

The climbers became stranded on Tower Ridge on their way up the 4,409-feet mountain.

The ridge, protruding north east from the summit plateau of Ben Nevis, is one of the most popular climbing routes in the UK – and is one of the few mountain routes in Scotland with sufficient length and exposure to be considered Alpine in character.

A Stornoway Coastguard search and rescue helicopter was sent to their aid after the alarm was raised at 7am.

The helicopter made three trips up Ben Nevis to put 18 members of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team about 2,500 ft up on the mountain.

However, because of low cloud base the helicopter could not rescue the climbers from the Tower Gap end of the ridge.

So the mountain rescue team reached the climbers, using ropes and ladders, at 2:30pm and helped them down the mountain to where they could be airlifted.

They were taken to a waiting ambulance at the base of the mountain before being taken to the Belford Hospital at Fort

William. One had suffered mild hypothermia.

Their condition is unknown but not life threatening.

Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team leader John Stevenson said the conditions on Saturday night when they received the first alarm call at 7:45pm were “horrendous”.

“It was total whiteout and a blizzard,” he said. Pensioner injured by hit-and-run driver

A climber died after falling at the summit of Ben Nevis last month.

Rescuers, who were assisted by an RAF helicopter, discovered the body of a 39-year-old man near the Bidean Nam Bian peak in Glencoe.