A police drone has captured the dramatic rescue of four men who had become cragfast (stuck on a rock face and unable to ascend or descend) on dangerous ground on Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales.
The Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team received word Wednesday that a group of four walkers had become trapped on a perilous section of the mountain while trying to return to the car park. Since it was already dark, the emergency rescue service called on North Wales Police’s drone unit to help rescue the walkers.
The drone unit used a DJI industrial craft equipped with a 10,200 lumen LED spotlight to illuminate the cliff while the mountain rescue volunteers abseiled down to the stuck walkers to help lower them to safety. The entire action was caught on the drone camera:
Meanwhile, the Snowdonia Society, a member-based conservation charity that helps look after the mountain, has raised an alarm that Snowdon was being blighted by footpath erosion, littering, and careless wild camping.
At the same time, the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team has also expressed concern about an increasing number of people trying to climb the 1,085-meter peak without the proper equipment or planning. In a Facebook post on Thursday, the rescue service said:
This August, the team experienced its busiest month on record. We were called out 49 times last month, with the total number of callouts for this year now at 158.
September has also started with three callouts so far for us. The last of yesterday’s being a group of four walkers becoming cragfast on the cliffs of Clogwyn Mawr while trying to get to their car in the Llanberis Pass. A team of eight was deployed with help of the North Wales Police drone unit. The four cragfast men were lowered to safety.
In addition to helping people who had become cragfast, the emergency rescue team has also had to deal with visitors suffering heat stroke and asthma, hikers who fell or were hit by falling rocks, and lost tourists.
Read more: Watch dramatic footage of drones saving swimmers in distress
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