Respect the mountains plea by rescue teams
Search and rescue teams in Snowdonia are appealing to novices to stay off the mountains and to everyone to respect the peaks and the weather, after they had a busy weekend dealing with call-outs.
A men had to be airlifted from Tryfan, one of the toughest climbs in the National Park, after they and seven others in the party drove to North Wales and chose the peak at random.
The rescue took place on Saturday.
A spokesman for the Ogwen mountain rescue team said: " "Nine friends with no mountaineering experience set out to climb Tryfan having chosen it from the roadside.
"With no equipment, route in mind or map it soon went wrong. Two of the group reached the summit, three went back down and four continuing to climb up slowly."
The two on the summit phoned the group of four and advised them to turn around and go back down. They did,but with no map or compass they strayed onto the west face where one of the group with a history of panic attacks found he couldn't breathe properly.
"A hill party deployed to the casualty group and moved them slowly back to the North Ridge before the coastguard rescue helicopter from St Athan became available after a rescue on Snowdon."
The helicopter crew winched the hyper-ventilating man on board and flew him down the hillside while the others were walked down by the rescue team.
