1 hour ago
4
Image source, Skye Mountain Rescue Team
Skye Mountain Rescue Team assisted 20 people over a 13-hour period on Friday
A mountain rescue team leader has compared a flurry of callouts, which saw 20 climbers saved over a 13-hour period, to a pop-up game.
Skye Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) described the period from 07:00 to 20:00 on Friday as "one of the busiest days the team can remember".
MRT leader Paddy Stephenson told the BBC's Radio Scotland Breakfast that the incidents on the Skye Trail were all weather-related and involved tourists.
He said: "Whac-a-Mole is a very good analogy of Friday."
In a social media post on Saturday, Skye MRT said volunteers were at times dealing with several incidents at once, with all available staff committed.
Stephenson said the climbers were all "pretty experienced" European nationals who appeared to have been caught off-guard by the severity of the weather.
Image source, Skye Mountain Rescue Team
A Skye Mountain Rescue Team vehicle during a callout on Friday
He told the programme some became stuck on the Trotternish Ridge, the high level part of the trail.
Others became stranded due to rising water levels in burns and rivers between Sligachan and Camasunary.
Skye MRT also used a Facebook post to question how the route was marketed.
They warned: "The word 'trail' can suggest a defined or established route similar to other long-distance trails.
"The reality can be very different.
"This is a journey through serious, remote and challenging terrain, with sections where there may be no obvious path to follow."
Stephenson said those rescued on Friday were all European visitors.
He added: "They had no concept of how bad Scottish weather can be and how unrelenting the wind and rain is."
Image source, Skye Mountain Rescue Team
Weather conditions on Skye on Friday were described as "particularly poor"
The callouts happened on a day when the weather, which had been forecast, was "particularly poor" but "not exceptional".
But Stephenson said the requests for help "just kept coming".
He added: "It was just like 'Gee whiz'.
"We were stretched to our limits."
The trail gained popularity after it featured on BBC Scotland's The Adventure Show.
Renowned walker Cameron McNeish chronicled his journey from the most northerly point, Rubha Hunish, along the Trotternish Ridge, through the iconic Cuillin hills, to finish 113km (70 miles) away at Broadford.
Stephenson said the route was being "promoted sensibly" by some and less so by others, notably influencers on social media.
He said: "You don't get much traction online if you are showing videos, like we show, of horrible weather when you are trying to promote a route."
Stephenson described the trail as "relatively easy" in good weather.
But he added: "In poor weather it is often impassable.
"When it is windy and rainy on the Trotternish Ridge it is no place to put anybody."
He also noted it took climbers to an elevation of 450m (1,476ft) to 600m (1,969ft).
Stephenson added: "A lot of the hikes in the continent, the villages you start in are higher than that.
"They think it is going to be a walk in the park.
"They don't realise that it is just full-on exposure, no shelter, nothing to stop the weather coming in from the Atlantic and just blasting them.
"The amount of destroyed tents that we were helping people bin is just incredible."
The MRT leader described the number of callouts on Friday as "almost unsustainable".
He added that he hoped safety information could be included with any online promotional coverage of the trail.
"You don't want to regulate the outdoors too much but this is what can happen when people don't do their research or go into the unknown," he said.
