teams+regions section13 - Mountain Rescue England and Wales

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Llanberis MRT
by Rob Johnson
The Llanberis Mountain
Rescue Team, in North
Wales, was formed in
1968 when the
principals of the local
outdoor centres got
together under the
chairmanship of Don
Roscoe and started
the embryo team.
However, it wasn’t until
March 1973 that the
team was recognised
by the then Mountain
Rescue Council. We
have always had a
strong pool of talented
climbers and
mountaineers within
our team
membership, including
counting Joe Brown on
the call-out list for
many years.
We’re kept pretty busy covering
Snowdon, Y Lliwedd, the Llanberis
Pass, the slate quarries and the
Snowdon side of the Glyders and
seem to be averaging about 175
call-outs each year. We are one of
the few teams in the UK to run a
flat hierarchy and are proud of the
fact there are no team leaders and
no set roles within the operational
side of the team. When a 999 call
comes in, the whole team is
informed, right from the first
message from North Wales Police,
through the SMS system. We have
a dozen people who have agreed
to be coordinators, who will then
pick the job up and initiate the callout but hill strategies are then
based on the skills of those people
on the front end dealing with the
incident.
All our team members are
climbers in summer and winter.
We have six SARDA (Wales) dog
handlers, many (more than a
dozen) Mountaineering Instructors
and Mountain Guides and four
Land Rovers, and we operate
from a small base with minimal
overheads next to a pub. We train
in rescue skills, one Sunday and
one evening session a month, to
supplement individual skills and
the many jobs we do.
The majority of the team have
the MREW Cas Care qualification
as a minimum and we have
around twenty people with
Intermediate or Advanced ECMR
qualifications. We are also proud
of the fact that none of our jackets
have a badge on. You won’t find
any Llanberis team member
wearing anything that says
‘Mountain Rescue’ on it. As far as
we are concerned there’s no
need, we know who we are, the
casualty is always pleased to see
us and if we need to identify
ourselves to other agencies or an
aircraft we use fluorescent
tabards. We like the original ethos
of mountain rescue, a team of
climbers and mountaineers who
are happy to help other climbers
and mountaineers when they get
into mischief. We often have a
giggle as we see others
wandering around Snowdon with a
big mountain rescue badge glued
to their rucksack or jacket.
We get our fair share of lost
walkers and regularly come across
people in jeans and trainers but
we try and resist the easy media
plug to publicly criticise these
people. The unique public view of
TEAMS: LLANBERIS MRT
Photos: Rob Johnson
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Llanberis MRT
Snowdon as a tourist destination
rather than a mountain adds to
this. They are out having an
adventure in the mountains the
same as anyone else and the vast
majority survive their epics, learn
from them and never have to call
us. We do educate people we
have rescued where we think we
can help them avoid having the
same problem in the future but we
do it with a smile. Mountain rescue
teams are not the Mountain Police
and we would never look to
‘inspect’ people as they leave the
car park but we do provide local
leaflets and posters on mountain
safety and have recently worked in
partnership with other local
agencies in producing a mountain
safety app for smart phone users.
This enables users to gain access
to weather forecasts, ground
conditions reports and even GPS
info on their phone.
We deal with a number of crag
rescues each year and, of course,
are regularly up on Crib Goch to
help those who are lost or injured.
It’s rare for a job to take more than
about 3-4 hours but those that do
are normally on the big crags such
as Y Lliwedd or Cloggy and that’s
where our technical skills are really
put through their paces. Our rope
systems are flexible, we use what
works for each situation and don’t
have prescribed ways of doing
things. We approach problems as
climbers and look for the simplest
and safest solution. We had a
strong input into the MREW rope
rescue guidelines, keen to ensure
that they remained guidelines and
not a rigid set of procedures so
that experts still had flexibility in
their approach to solving crag
problems.
As a team we have led the way
on the fatal incident protocol for
mountain rescue teams, we were
the first team in the UK to
introduce Petzl IDs to our technical
rigging kit, the first to use the
intranasal application of
diamorphine, had the first search
dog team in Wales and continue
to build strong links with the
Mountain Medicine course at
Bangor University. These
developments have always come
from an open approach to new
ideas and by not being too bound
by procedures and guidelines.
As with any team in the UK the
biggest strength are the people.
We have a lot of strong characters
with a great deal of individual skills
and when the proverbial hits the
fan we really pull together well and
it’s a real joy to be a part of.
Having our base next door to the
pub probably helps in that respect
too! We are fortunate to receive
several applications from
prospective new members at each
committee meeting and have a
good balance of age groups on
the team which should ensure that
the team continues to do a good
job for those that need help on the
crags and mountains around
Llanberis for many years to come.
Published 29 February 2012
TEAMS: LLANBERIS MRT
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