Volunteers on Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team are on course to have their busiest year to date.

The team responded to its 133rd incident of the year on Halloween.

The figure equals the most calls it has received in a year.

The call was to come to the aid of two walkers who had got into difficulties whilst coming down Scafell Pike.

The pair became disorientated and became stuck in awkward ground as they descended England’s highest mountain.

Members of the Wasdale team were called to find and help the pair from the mountain. They used Sarloc – a smartphone app – to help locate the walkers in the Middleboot Knotts area underneath the Corridor route.

Trained mountain rescue volunteers were then able to walk the pair down to safety.

The Wasdale team said: “This was the 133rd incident for the team so far this year, which equals the most calls in 12 months.”

Meanwhile, building work continues at a new base for the team.

More than £555,000 is being spent on the purpose-built headquarters on land on the outskirts of Gosforth.

The new base will officially open in September 2018, to coincide with the team’s 50th anniversary.

The new facility will include a training tower to allow members to practise difficult rescues and will have a retractable 18m radio mast to allow for better communication.

The bulk of the funding has come from the team, with the rest from Copeland Community Fund (£218,000) and the Lake District Search and Mountain Rescue Association (12,000).

The team mainly covers the Wasdale and Eskdale valleys, extending over Cold Fell towards the coast in the north and onto Ulpha fell in the south.

50 years of rescues: Page 28