LET us speak plainly, since the mountain rescue volunteers cannot. It’s not that they’re restricted from venting their annoyance by policy, but more that they work without complaint because they are professionals and excellent human beings. So the following is merely my own opinion. Forgive me for not holding back.
Let’s make a clear distinction before I continue. There are many callouts where people genuinely need the services of an MRT. This is inevitable, and it always has been. I’m not aiming my ire here towards them, I am directing it at those who find themselves calling mountain rescue because their lack of sense and preparedness has put them in peril.
There is a growing class of outdoor imbecile in this country. A reckless, self‑absorbed, catastrophically unprepared horde of summit‑chasing half-wits who treat mountains like Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa, if you will) as if they were a free amusement park staffed by their own on‑demand personal sherpas. These people are not “visitors”. They are not “new adventurers”. They are a plague of entitlement wrapped in polyester.
Llanberis Mountain Rescue has just endured 59 callouts in a single month. FIFTY‑NINE. That is not a statistic – it’s a scandal!
Fifty nine occasions across 31 days of volunteers – actual human beings with jobs, families, responsibilities – being yanked away from dinner tables and children’s bedtimes because some clown decided that Crib Goch “looked fine on TikTok”.
The mountains have not become more dangerous, but some of the people climbing them have become more stupid.
And not the charming, forgivable kind of stupid. The dangerous, selfish, reality‑denying type.
These are the individuals who march into exposed Grade 1 scrambles with the confidence of a man who once watched a YouTube video titled “Top 10 Epic Ridge Walks”. They are the ones who believe a screenshot of a route is “navigation”, who think trainers are “basically the same as boots”, and who assume that if things go wrong, a team of highly trained volunteers will simply materialise from the mist like a mountain‑themed Uber.
Meanwhile, those volunteers – the ones who never complain, never criticise, never publicly condemn – are dragging stretchers through darkness, hauling casualties off wet rock, and recovering bodies. They are doing this in rain, in wind, in heat, in exhaustion. They are doing it while the people they rescue often have the gall to look surprised that the mountain did not behave like the Instagram reel promised.
Llanberis MRT is on course for 440 incidents this year. In 2020, they had 147.
This is not a gentle increase. This is an explosion of idiocy.
And let us be clear about these volunteers. They are not paid. They are not on shifts. They are not sitting in a warm station waiting for a bell to ring. They are at work, at home, asleep, eating, living – until someone’s arrogance tears them away.
How selfish must a person be to walk into dangerous terrain with no experience, no equipment, no understanding of weather, and no plan beyond “it’ll be fine”? How breathtakingly self‑centred must someone be to assume that their lack of preparation is a problem for someone else to solve?
It is selfish on a scale that should be studied by psychologists.
These volunteers give thousands of hours – 8,800 hours in 2023 alone, before training and admin are even counted. They do it because they care. They do it because they are good people. They do it because they cannot bear the thought of leaving someone in danger.
And what do they get in return? A rising tide of preventable callouts from people who treat the mountains like a backdrop for content.
The rescue team is too professional to say it. So I will…
If you cannot read a map, do not go. If you cannot recognise deteriorating weather, do not go. If you cannot scramble, do not go. If you cannot turn around when things feel wrong, do not go. If you think Crib Goch is “just a ridge”, do not go. If you believe the mountain owes you a safe passage, do not go.
Because every time you ignore these truths, a volunteer pays the price with their own precious time.
And they deserve far better than to be the safety net for Britain’s growing population of outdoor narcissists.
Renard
…
Join the Everwild Outdoors community
The conversation doesn’t stop when you leave the website. Join us on social media for more outdoor news, stories, ideas and discussion…
Reddit: r/outdoorsnews
Facebook: Everwild Outdoors
X: @EWO_tweets
Instagram: @ever_wild_outdoors
YouTube: Everwild Outdoors
Well said. Could not have put this better myself.
And, yes, I doubt any serving member of mountain rescue would say it, as they’re too professional and dedicated, but I don’t doubt for a minute that this is what they’re thinking.