ORDEAL ON MOUNTAIN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 28, 30 December 1932, Page 8

ORDEAL ON MOUNTAIN.

TWO YOUTHS RESCUED. INJURED WHEN CLIMBING. A rescue party’s descent in darkness of 2400 feet on a mountain, carrying two injured youths on stretchers; first aid given halfway down by a doctor, aged 70; the youths’ all-night ordeal on the mountain side, one with a broken leg and the other with a broken collarbone. These are the chief acts in a drama of the Langdale Pikes, Westmoreland.

The youths, Leslie Tyson, aged 18, a boot operator, and Reginald Wales, a.ged 17, a chemist’s assistant, both of Kendal, Westmoreland, set out for Langdale on a climbing expedition. They did not return, and a* rescue party started out. Mr J. Brady, of Sedgwick, and Mr Arthur Walmsley, of Kendal, went to Gimmer Crag, and from the top they saw the youths lying below. They were 50 yards apart. Mr Brady stayed with them while Mr Walmsley went to Langdale for help. He collected a party, who took two stretchers up the mountain side. By the time they arrived darkness had set in. The injured youths were strapped to th 9 stretchers and were carried to the Dungeon Gh.yll new hotel at Langdale. There they were attended by Dr. B. R. Johnson, of Ambleside, who is over 70 years old, and climbed halfway up the mountain to give first aid. Wales had fractured his left collarbone, and lia'd an eight-inch wound on one of his thighs, and Tyson had a fractured left leg, cuts and bruises. “We were trying to descend Gimmer Crag roped . together,” said Tyson. “One of us slipped, and this brought us both down. We do not. remember much about our night on the mountain, although we had been there 24 hours. I must have been unconscious for long periods.” Gimmer Crag, a buttress on the west shoulder of Langdale Pikes, was first scaled 31 rears ago. It is difficult to climb, with crags rising almost perpendicnlarly.