Praise for Belgian teens who survived a night of Arctic blizzards on Ben Macdui

A PARTY of Belgian hillwalkers, some as young as 14, have been praised by their rescuers after surviving a night of Arctic blizzards on the slopes of the UK’s second highest mountain.

The group – three men and six teenagers, boys and girls aged between 14 and 16 – were airlifted to safety yesterday after they had provided mountain rescue teams with an exact location of the spot on the foothills of 4,295ft high Ben Macdui, where they had sheltered in tents as high winds and heavy snowfalls swept the Cairngorm plateau.

They were located by the crew of a Royal Navy Sea King search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet at Prestwick, as mountain rescue teams prepared for a ten-hour mission to rescue them on foot.

Chief Inspector Andy Todd, who co-ordinates mountain rescue in the Grampian Police force area, said the hillwalking party would have been at risk from avalanches and hypothermia if they had tried to reach safety on their own.

He said: “The location they sent was bang on. We told them they were safe where they were and not to move. They did the right thing. And they are all none the worse – no frostnip or anything like that.”

Chief Insp Todd stressed he did not fault the party for venturing out on to the hillside. He said: “They would never have anticipated the speed with which the winter conditions can come on in the Cairngorms. They knew where they were, they had the right equipment and they made the right decisions.”

He said the party had set off from Braemar on Monday, planning to camp for two or three days in the Cairngorms.

“In the afternoon they recognised the weather was turning on them and decided to make camp at what they considered to be a safe location and see what the night brought.

“This morning they were looking at 3ft to 4ft of snow, and they recognised that there was no way that they could function or move in the weather.”

The party texted a Scottish friend, who alerted the emergency services. When the mountain rescue team was contacted, the conditions in the area were still atrocious.

Chief Insp Todd said: “We didn’t believe the helicopter was going to be able to get in because of the conditions. And for us to walk in to them with that amount of fresh snow would take a lot of hours, and during that time the kids would have got colder and susceptible to hypothermia.”

Had the rescue helicopter not been able to airlift the walkers to safety, mountain rescue teams would have faced a trek of four to five hours and the same back. One possible route would have taken them past an avalanche-prone slope, while another would have meant climbing over a treacherous boulder field.

Chief Insp Todd said: “I think this demonstrates that full winter can return in the space of one night and you need to have the skills to cope with that. Those who are expecting 24C, as we had last week, aren’t going to find it, and they need to be clear when they are going out to the hills that they have the skills and equipment to cope.”