Mountain Rescue England and Wales

The southern part of the Yorkshire Dales is famous, internationally, for its karst limestone landscape and its open, gritstone moorland. The area offers a range of walking opportunities – riverside strolls, long-distance paths and challenge walks – while mountain-biking is growing in popularity. Gritstone outcrop climbing was born here and the area boasts some classic limestone routes at Kilnsey and Malham, as well as the best caving and pot-holing in Britain. 

The teams' activities reflect the diversity of the area's landscape and recreation; disregard the names as both teams go out, frequently, to 'save lives above and below ground'. Each supports the other with specialist equipment and/or personnel, particularly on prolonged underground incidents which can soon exhaust rescuers. In a landscape much 'softer' than the Lake District or Snowdonia, the bread and butter jobs are to 'slips, trips and falls' (people and sheep!), overdue challenge walkers and pot-holers. The potential for cavers to ignore or miscalculate the weather adds further to 'the variety of life' for team members.

CRO, based in Clapham, provides surface and underground search and rescue services in Malhamdale, the Three Peaks area and into Cumbria and Lancashire. www.cro.org.uk

UWFRA, based in Grassington, provides those same services in Littondale, Wharfedale, Nidderdale  and into West Yorkshire.  www.uwfra.org.uk .

CRO members attended 50 incidents in 2008, whilst UWFRA members attended 36. Collectively, during the year, they aided 97 cavers, 50 walkers, four climbers, three persons missing from home, a driver whose car was swept away in a river, a driver and passenger trapped in a car in a canal, a show cave visitor, a gamekeeper trapped under an overturned Argocat, six sheep/lambs and five dogs. There was one false alarm with good intent. Stand-by calls are not recorded by either team.

Both teams have SARDA dog handlers available. During 2008, they were called out 21 times to support other search and rescue teams in the North of England