On Wednesday 26th January the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team was called by Cumbria police for two walkers who had become lost descending from Helvellyn. They had found themselves unable to continue in the dark and rang for assistance. Due to the team being up in the Cairngorms for winter training the incident was passed onto the Penrith team who were covering our area .

As they were starting the rescue and gathering the information they were contacted by the police to say the couple had now managed to find their own way down to Patterdale and the main road . The incident took half an hour and we would like to thank Penrith Mountain Rescue for their assistance dealing with the incident enabling us to travel out of the area for training.

Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team was called out after a couple had raised the alarm when they became stuck on Striding Edge. By the time the team made contact they had managed to get onto the Helvellyn plateau. It had gone dark by then and the couple were not confident navigating themselves off the mountain.

The team send 2 Land Rovers and 7 team member made their way up and collected the stranded couple. They were escorted back down the valley and given a lift back to Glenridding in the Land Rover.

At 14.23 hrs on Tuesday 4th January a report was received by the duty leader at Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team that vehicles were stuck on the Kirkstone Pass with possible damage and it was unknown if any injuries had occurred. On liaising with Cumbria Police they requested that the team was mobilised to investigate due to the conditions of the road reported at the time.

The duty leader and one member of the team, who was already at base, attended in a team Landrover. On arrival it was established that one vehicle was stuck on the ice/snow on a steep part of the pass. The council grittier was at the scene and the vehicle was freed and driven onto the summit. A second vehicle had slipped on the ice and unfortunately hit the wall causing damage to this vehicle.

Fortunately there were no injuries and recovery was arranged. The incident took an hour in total with two team members attending. The team would like to remind everyone that the mountain passes can be treacherous at this time of year and often only passable with 4×4 vehicles. Please take care if either on the roads or the fells as it is very icy and slippy at the present time.

Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team was called by Cumbria Police at 17.50 hrs on New Year’s Eve to reports of two males who had requested assistance after becoming lost due to the low cloud and being overcome by darkness. The location of the two men, who were from the West Midlands area, was quickly established using Sarloc to being on the ridge below Nethermost Pike, heading down into the Grisedale valley.

Due to the weather conditions and fading batteries on both of the men’s phones and torches they were asked to stay still and the team would make their way up to them to walk them off. Three small teams were deployed covering the three routes up to the casualties to cover all eventualities. En route, after speaking to the casualty, it was established that they had split up with one walker staying as instructed and the other one heading back up the ridge.

Both men were eventually located and walked down to the valley bottom and conveyed back to Patterdale base . The rescue lasted just under 6 hours with 12 team members being deployed. Thankfully, team members were able to make it home just in time to welcome the new year in with their families.

At 06:47 on Thursday 30th December Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team received a request to assist Wasdale MRT with a search for a man and his 11 year old son who had gone missing after setting out to climb Scarfell the previous day. The search had been started the previous evening.

A vehicle and 4 team members were deployed as a search party on the ground, joining volunteers from many of the other Lake District Teams. Two other team members assisted with strategic coordination and search management. The incident concluded at 11:15 after the missing party managed to made their own way down to Boot.

The Team’s 2021 incident attendance register records this callout as “Shouts reported in Glenamara Park”. It was recorded as a limited callout. No further public press-release wording survives in the archive.