Incident 32 of 2022
14/08/22, 21.59, Old Man of Coniston, SD280981
It was a humid dry night with a light cloud cover. Cumbria Police received a call from a member of the public who had been camping at one of the local campsites round Coniston. The person had seen someone using a torch performing an SOS signal whilst descending what appeared to be the main tourist route down from the Old Man of Coniston. A torchlight had been seen in that area by a couple of Team members too.
A small party was split into two and went to investigate all the possible descent routes from that location. The tracks covered included the path from Miners’ Bridge to Windy Gap, Walna Scar up to Bursting Stone Quarries, and the track from Walna Scar to Windy Gap, where the four members rendezvoused. They then walked up to Saddlestone Quarries in case someone had decided to camp in that area. However, nobody was found so the party returned to Base; the only interesting life form encountered being the common toad which was out in abundance during the search.
At least once a year we do respond to these types of callouts where a member of the public has good intent. Nearly all, however, are just walkers using a torch to return to their vehicle, having gone for an evening walk. We do not generally ignore the alert though, because, if we did, that would be the one time our help was genuinely needed!
5 members attended this callout which took 2 hours and 5 minutes.