As a Mountain Rescue Team, NWMRT have got to be prepared to operate in all sorts of weather conditions….snow, rain, wind…and….although rarely experienced in this country…. extremely hot conditions.
The present good weather is just the time when many people take to the hills for a day out, sometimes never having done so before…and that is when they can get into difficulties, especially on steep ground when some people can become “cragfast”…a situation where a person can completely lose their confidence on that steep ground and can go no further..up , across or down without assistance..and that is the situation for which members of NWMRT were training yesterday on Cave Hill in Belfast.
In sometimes sweltering conditions, they practiced “confidence roping”…a technique to help people in that situation, off the hill and back to ground on which they feel safer.
