Patrick Relay spring 2016

Spring 2016

Patrick Relay News from the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team

Photo: Dave Freeborn

Two Mikes and a Benny who’s a David

Three new members joined us in March – and the addition of Mike Hargreaves (left) and Mike Childs (with radio) brings our total of Mikes to four! Add to that our third new member, David Benson (right), being known to everyone as Benny and there’s potential for confusion!

Before his move to Tirril, Mike C was a member of Borders SRT in Scotland and before that Upper

Wharfedale Fell Rescue in the Yorkshire Dales.

Mike H is looking forward to contributing time and effort to the community: “I’d love my kids to grow up around the Team and its characters and feel inspired themselves,” he says.

Mike, Mike and Benny have successfully completed a probationary year of training and assessment and we’re pleased to welcome them to the Team.

Showing what we do Many readers and members of the Supporters’ Club are probably also Team Followers on Facebook so you’ll be aware of our recent posts featuring videos from rescues, especially those on Helvellyn in the early months of 2016.

“Posting the videos on to Facebook has created a huge amount of interest,” says

Deputy Team Leader, Mike Rippon, “with lots of comments and shares. We’ve been able to show the helicopter support in action and demonstrate the extreme conditions up on the mountain tops and ridges – exactly the messages about wind and weather that we’ve needed to get out to visitors. Having the video footage also attracted quite a bit of media interest and our simple amateur videos have been seen on local news broadcasts too!”

There are several people on the Team with experience of using the GoPro helmet cameras and Dave Freeborn, who is an expert videographer, cameraman and editor, can give the Team’s rough footage some tlc to create the videos that you then see online. “We’re building up quite a selection of videos that we can use for publicity and also for debriefing and learning too,” says Training Officer, Al McCaig.

Visit the Patterdale Mountain Rescue web site at www. mountainrescue.org.uk for latest call outs

Flooding, flood recovery and friends

The Last Degree to the South Pole

As most readers will know, the Team was very much involved during the December flooding in and around Patterdale, especially in Glenridding village. These are just a few of the images that record events during and after those floods.

Kate Tyndall, who has a house in Hartsop near Ullswater, was part of a unique expedition at the end of last year – and she took the opportunity to fundraise for the Team.

In December 2015, I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to travel to Antarctica and to join an expedition to ski the Last Degree to the South Pole.

The expedition was initiated by members of the family of James Wordie, the eminent polar scientist who as a young man was a member of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Endurance expedition in 1915. To mark its centenary, they asked British adventurer, David Hempleman-Adams and the Norwegian, Rune Gjeldnes to lead an expedition to ski to the South Pole, and the Wordie family have been working in parallel to raise funds to digitise and publish Sir James Wordie’s diary from the Endurance expedition. This has been achieved. The original idea was that we would be dropped off on the polar ice plateau at the point where Shackleton himself had been forced to turn back on an earlier bid to reach the South Pole in 1909, just over 100 nautical miles still to go. However, we experienced weather delays, and instead we had to attempt what is known as the Last Degree, where you are dropped at 89 degrees south, in order to ski the final 60 nautical miles (roughly 70 statute miles) to the South Pole.

I was one of a group of 12 individuals on the expedition – including the author and ex-SAS soldier Andy McNab, who had extensive experience of Arctic conditions in his earlier life. The

youngest member of our party was an awesome 17-year-old young woman, who proved one of the most resilient and capable in our group. Together, we each had to measure up to the experience of a lifetime. Temperatures were minus 30 on a good day, and below minus 50 when the wind was strong. We were there for Midsummer’s Day when the sun circled at pretty much the same height in the sky 24/7, with only short passages of cloud.

When we flew up to the massive ice plateau that covers the great majority of the continent of Antarctica, we rose up to 9,500 feet; atmospheric conditions made it feel like 11,000 feet, so we had to start slowly to adjust to the altitude. At first we skied three to four miles a day, pulling our equipment in pulks (sledges on harnesses attached to our hips) and then by Day 6 more than 12 nautical miles a day.

By Day 8, we had arrived at the South Pole, which is far from empty. There is a massive US Science Station that operates within the context of the international Antarctic Treaty of 1961 – one of many national science programmes over the continent as a whole.

It is an extraordinary experience to ski up to it from those first moments when it appears on the horizon. And it turned out that we got stuck there for four more days before the company supporting our expedition could fly us back out. We returned to the UK eight days late, missing Christmas and returning to news of the floods in Cumbria.

Our continued best wishes go to everyone in the valley who have also done so much to prepare Patterdale for visitors in 2016.

News and Pictures North

Photo: Lutz Henke

Hitting the target for new radios

T

hank you to each and every one of our supporters who contributed to the Radio Fund in 2015. We set ourselves the target of raising £25,000 in all, enabling us to replace an aging and outdated system with new digital radios for Team members and all the associated equipment for our vehicles and in the Control Room at the Rescue Centre.

“It’s the first time we’ve set an appeal target for a specific piece of kit,” says Team Leader, Mike

Blakey, “but we wanted to replace the radio system before the age of the old ones became a problem during incidents. At the start of the year, £25,000 from donations and fundraising seemed a tough target but our supporters really rose to the challenge and Team members, Dave Freeborn and Eelco Docter have had the job of specifying and sourcing the new system. Team members are about to start using the new radios after training and familiarisation during March and early April.”

Visit the Patterdale Mountain Rescue web site at www. mountainrescue.org.uk for latest call out information and Team news

The following extract is from one of several poems by Claire Shackelton. Claire was talked down from the Nab above Patterdale in 2015 by members of the Team and she wrote the poems as a thank you.

Strangers and Angels My intention when we made the call, To know that if I were to fall Further Into that pain and fear Help was there, and help was as near, As it could be.

I gradually settled as the minutes ticked by Given the gift of reassurance as we talked it through Given time to reflect about what best to do.

Arm in a sling, and chest strapped tight John’s jacket becomes my security blanket I get up and attempt the walk back, By the top of the wall – no spasms – back to the track.

There’s something about these moments of clarity That weave their way into life’s rich tapestry How paths cross and lives intersect The channels and chasms where we interconnect, Through painful spasms and the kindness of strangers Reaching out – like guardian angels.

Dave Freeborn appointed Hon Pres At the Team’s recent AGM, long-serving member and ex-Team Leader, Dave Freeborn MBE, was appointed Honorary President of the Team.

“We’ve only ever had one person in this role in the past,” says Team Leader, Mike Blakey, “and that was our founder, Dr James Ogilvie.

Dave was completely taken aback by the announcement, typical of his modest views of all he’s done for the Team over the 35 years that he’s been a member.”

Dave joined the team in 1981, becoming Team Leader in 1990 and serving almost 17 years in that role before stepping down in March 2008. He was recognised in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List with an MBE for services to Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team and continues to be an active member of the Team.

“It is a great honour to be appointed to this role and to be associated with Dr Ogilvie,” says Dave. “My wife, Jacquie, is also very much involved with the Team as Base Controller on many incidents and as Chair of the Trustees so we have lots of links and will be very much part of the Team into the future.”

Triple Challenge for Rachael

2016 was an interesting year for one of our younger supporters, Rachael Moseley, as she had her 11th birthday and decided to attempt a “Triple Challenge” to raise funds for the Team .

Part One was to walk the Hadrian’s Wall path which I completed over a week in April.

We probably had the hottest week of the year. Great fun but the heat provided an unexpected challenge!

Part Two was a hike around Iceland in July and August. I loved the walk and the breathtaking scenery but the experience was ruined a little when my Dad fractured his back on the last day. He spent the next couple of months lying down while wearing a spinal brace.

Part Three was a five-day hike in Annapurna, Nepal. My Dad had promised me that he

would make it on the Nepal trip and he did just that! We changed our original route to make it less risky for him but that still included a 1000m descent and a climb of 2000m.

We completed the Triple Challenge in late October and managed to raise a significant amount for Team funds.

Next up? I am planning to walk the 1,000+ mile route from Land’s End to John O’Groats in the coming years. I will attempt a 200-mile section in each of the five years that I am in secondary school. Watch out for my new Just Giving page for the Team.

Articles for Relay We are always looking for interesting articles or letters from supporters. Please write c/o Patrick Relay Editor, Ogilvie House, Patterdale, Cumbria CA11 0PJ Patterdale Mountain Rescue Association Ltd. is a registered charity No1063329 and is affiliated to the Mountain Rescue Council of England and Wales.