“Back in the 70s and 80s, when people used to run winter skills courses, you could lay on a weekend knowing there would be enough snow in the lakes on a February weekend,” Dan Farley, another of the team’s deputies who has volunteered for more than 25 years, added.
Often when the team go to rescue people they also find they have used an unsuitable app to guide them, either in-built phone navigation, or one with crowdsourced information that may provide wildly inaccurate estimations for how long a walk will take.
Winters with the Patterdale mountain rescue team, of which he is now deputy leader, would involve big and complicated rescues, during which he would bring down the experienced hikers who had become injured or ill tackling the national park’s famous peaks in snow and ice.
“Years ago, we used to get a lot of big winter jobs, avalanches and stuff like that, but you just don’t get the snow and the weather for it now, it’s all changing,” Barrow said.
David Gracie, a volunteer of nine years and one of the team’s other deputies, said many of the callouts involved groups of younger people who, pre-pandemic, may not have thought to visit the Lakes.
