A BUSY mountain rescue team has welcomed seven new members.

The probationary members of Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team successfully completed their final skills day recently and have now joined the team as full-time members ahead of what is expected to be a busy summer season.

The team spent the day training around Piers Gill, one of the main rescue flashpoints in the Wasdale valley.

As the culmination of a 15-month training programme for the 2020 intake of probationers, it was a mixture of important familiarisation in one of the team’s most notorious and difficult-to-access areas, along with an assessment of the skills that each of them have learned over the past 15 months, focusing on ropework, safety lines and stretcher handling.

A spokesman said: “Piers Gill is a steep ravine located close to Scafell Pike, and is unfortunately the location of a number of serious, sometimes fatal accidents in recent years.

“Rescues here require intensive resources from the mountain rescue team, all of whom are volunteers, often in very difficult conditions at all times of day and night.”

The training began back in January, 2020, before the pandemic hit, with three months of basic training centred on the team base just outside Gosforth. It continued with a mix of online training, face to face training where permissible under lockdown rules, and attendance of call-outs on the fells under the supervision of full team members.

Along with eight new probationers joining the team this month, the seven new full team members add significantly to the strength of the team which is anticipating a busy summer.

Mike Smith, a new team member, said: “It feels like a real sense of achievement to be accepted into the team as a full member after going through an intense training programme in a very difficult year for everyone involved.

“Although we are a group of individuals from often very different backgrounds and walks of life, we come together as a team with a shared love of the hills and the outdoors, in order to help people who need us. I am proud to be a member of Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team.”

The team continues to support www.AdventureSmart.UK in urging visitors to the Lake District to ‘Be Adventure Smart’ by making sure they have the right gear with them on the fells, know what the weather is going to be like and are confident that they have the knowledge and skills for the day out they have planned.