AS one who has spent many years hillwalking and receiving enormous enjoyment from my expeditions into the hills, I really must take exception to Barry from Blantyre’s judgmental comments (Letters, February 13).

Like most hillwalkers I relish the challenge of the hills and pitting myself against nature by pushing my body to its limits. We are no different in this than others who get off their backsides and seek adventure in their chosen activities. I wonder if he takes a similar jaundiced view towards sky-divers, scuba-divers and all extreme sportsmen and woman in general. Considering the many thousands who go hill-walking, the number of rescue incidents is really quite small, due in some part to a high degree of common sense and experience within the hill-walking community and a readiness to assist fellow walkers in trouble.

As for his assertion that people are obliged to put their lives at risk in trying to rescue climbers, nothing could be further from the truth. The Mountain Rescue teams are composed of volunteers, many being keen hill-walkers and climbers themselves. They do the job willingly because they know that “there but for the grace of God” it could one day be them. Very many hill-walkers are aware of this and would themselves love to be in a mountain rescue team. There is no shortage of volunteers from those who know the hills in all their moods.

I hope the day never comes when restrictions are applied to hill-walkers or any others who pursue activities out of the ordinary. That would be an unacceptable imposition on the human spirit and this is certainly one hill-walker (semi-retired) who would ignore it. It would be truly appalling and tragic if hill-walking was vilified to such an extent that there were calls for medical treatment to be denied or charged for, as we sometimes see for obesity, alcoholism and those suffering some form of addiction.

J F Davidson
Bonnyrigg

I CAN only presume that Barry from Blantyre has never spent a day in the mountains when the winter conditions are full-on. If he wishes to understand why some of us love to venture out in the Arctic conditions, he only has to turn the page of yesterday’s paper and see the picture of walkers in the hills above Dalwhinnie.

While I can’t deny that some people may not understand the possible consequences of getting the weather wrong, or of not being sufficiently experienced to cope with the changing conditions, to try and police the hills is all but impossible. For this reason we are all glad that there are volunteers out there willing to risk their lives to rescue the unlucky or the unfortunate.

I was a member of two RAF Mountain Rescue Teams during my career, and also was a groundcrew member of a search-and-rescue helicopter squadron based at RAF Leuchers. I worked many times with civilian teams in Glencoe, Lochaber, Cairngorm and Dundonnel. All members of mountain rescue are volunteers, and all fully understand the risks involved in a callout. Most are walkers and climbers, and join the teams to assist like-minded people who may, for whatever reason, be in trouble.

The important point is that teams attend rescues fully aware of the risks involved, and always carry out their own risk assessment. They are not there to increase the possibility of any further incidents by getting into trouble. For this reason, you will often hear of searches being called off due to the increased risk of severe weather or avalanche danger for example. In addition, all teams spend a lot of their own time training to ensure that the risks are reduced to the absolute minimum.

Peter Amphlett
Urquhart