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TWO HILL WALKERS were rescued from the Galtee Mountains early this morning after becoming stranded in bad weather.
The two had become stranded on the mountains after they encountered bad weather and dense fog yesterday evening.
They were located by a search party of the South East Mountain Rescue Association at around 3am this morning. They were given food and drinks and walked down to the road near Kilcoran.
This is the second incident of people getting lost on the mountains in the last seven days that Mountain Rescue have had to search for.
The Deputy PRO for South East Mountain Rescue Jimmy Barry told RTÉ that walkers need to be aware of their abilities.
It’s a case of people going out there and thinking they can get away with it if the weather is fine during the day.
“But all of a sudden the evening comes down; and if you are not skilled in navigation and that; and if you are not with people that know how to navigate – please don’t go up there.
“Getting lost like that – you can get into serious, serious difficulty.”
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My dog, a buddy and myself climbed the gealtee mor a few years ago. We got up to the top when the weather changed suddenly, thick fog and lashing rain, couldn’t see anything but my buddy had a compass so wasn’t too worried, after a while following him around it felt like we were going uphill, after a quick inspection of the compass it was clearly fûćked.. Phone battery was also dead so no google maps, was starting to get dark so we just followed a river down the mountain, eventually got to a road but didn’t have a clue where we were. We were on this road with houses few and far between in the lashing rain in darkness so we started knocking on doors to find out where we were and this elderly couple opened the doors. After explaining our story they brought us in, made us tea and biscuits, laughed at the state of the compass and told us our car was 8 miles away.. After heating up in front of the fire he drove us to our car and wouldn’t take any money. John Cagney is his name and I can’t remember Mrs Cagneys name but your both legends!
The mountain rescue team must have being pretty cheesed off looking for them 2 clowns @ 3 am…..
It could have happened to anyone. Hope all are safe and well.
What is with all thewe unprepared idiots hiking on terrains they are not used to or have the equipment for.
Did they find the cheese?
Learn to map read and navigate. It’s not that difficult.
Surprisingly difficult to map read and know your exact location at 3am. Not as easy as it sounds.
But then again don’t get caught out in the that situation if you’re not able to deal with it.
I think the article originally said they got lost and called for help at 9pm. It’s at 3am that they were eventually located. They should have planned their excursion adequately to ensure that they would not still be up a mountain by 9pm when it grew dark, let alone factoring in fog.
A Beautiful part of the country, the weather can get very harsh up there even on a fine day in the greater area though. Its always best to be prepared when going to remote locations and avoid lending yourself to natures cruel side.
I’ve been on the galtee mts and saw 2 friends get hypothermia. 1 lost consciousness. We got them off safely. We are fairly experienced navigators. Point is people underestimate mountains in Ireland hugely. That day on the valley floor the weather was actually ok and up top was hugely different. Carry enough gear as you never know if someone will get injured.
Silly sausages!
Where I work we can see Galtee from the window the weather can change suddenly from good to bad in a matter of minutes. If you are going up you need to be prepared for all seasons. And yes I do work with cheese
They were probably looking for the breakfast !!
These stories are not helped by the sort of ‘walks’ described every week in the irish Times. Encouraging people to walk in areas which are definitely dangerous.
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