Two walkers became lost in the dark on the route across the plateau between the downfall and Crowden Clough.  To add to their difficulties, they were in an area where they had no mobile signal from their provider.  Fortunately they were able to send a 999 text via the satellite SOS service, which also meant the location information was passed on to us as well.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to call them back, so we weren’t able to confirm the location or let them know we were on our way.

The pair had reported that they were very cold and as we weren’t completely sure of the location, we deployed a couple of fast parties to establish if they were actually there.  Three search dog teams were also deployed as the plateau is a very large area to search if they turned out not to be there.

Co-incidentally, Buxton team were also on a job to find some other lost walkers near the top of Grindsbrook.  They had started their job a bit earlier than ours, so were already in the area and were able to spare some people to help out. 

As our team was on it’s way along the plateau, the controller managed to make contact with the couple.  They had continued to walk out and had ended up not too far from one of the Buxton teams.  The Buxton team members were able to find the missing couple and walk them safely back to their car in Edale.

Kinder Mountain Rescue Team is staffed by volunteers who give their time free of charge and is funded entirely by public donations.

https://www.justgiving.com/kmrt

– Time: 18:30

– Type: Lost walkers

– Location: Crowden Head, Kinder scout

– Team members: 28 + 3 Search Dog teams + Buxton MRT

– Duration: 3 hours

– Volunteer hours on this incident: 84 hours – Total callout hours in 2025: 951 hours