WATCH: Two climbers rescued in middle of night after getting cragfast in Cairngorms

Two climbers had to be rescued in the middle of the night after becoming crag fast on a route in the Cairngorms.

The man and woman in their 20s from the Glasgow area were struggling to complete the ‘Needle’ - a 260 metres climb on the Shelterstone Crag on Saturday evening.

HM Coastguard Highland R151 flew to the area direct from another tasking in Glencoe and established that assistance was required.

Eight members of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team were flown to the top of the climb where they set up a rigging system to lower a team member and then haul the climbers up one at a time.

The climbers were helped back to their camp by Loch Avon before the team members made the three hour walk back to Coire Cas arriving their at 5am yesterday.

Watch the rescue by clicking here.

Mountain rescue team leader Iain Cornfoot said: “We received the call at around 7pm on Saturday from another climbing party who have been ahead of them on the route and noticed they were pretty slow and had taken a long time to get the first few pitches of the route completed.

“They had to walk back out to get a phone signal to raise the alert and we still did not know at that time if the pair needed assistance.

“There were also a couple of rescues on-going else in the country so we could not get a helicopter to start with.

“We were preparing to walk in when Highland R151 became available and was able to fly in and take a look and saw the pair still on the climb so airlifted some of our team members in.”

Mr Cornfoot said: “They were still climbing and they had tried to call 999 themselves but they had no phone signal as they got higher up the climb.

“They were probably still two or three pitches from the top and by now it was around 1am.

“They had started the climb late which probably did not help and once on the Needle you either have to keep going up or have the ability to get back down safely which they did not.

“They did well to keep on going up even though they were slow over the first four or five pitches.

“They were pretty knackered by the time we reached them and relieved to see the team members coming down to pull them back to the top.”

Neither of the pair had suffered any injuries. “They were tired from the long day and cragfast as they could not get any higher,” explained Mr Cornfoot.

A CMRT spokesperson said: “The helicopter assistance was invaluable given the remote location and the amount of rope and equipment required to perform the rescue.

The CMRT relies on public donations to fund the life-saving work that it does.

Anyone who wants to find out more about the team or who would like to contribute can do so at https://cmrt.org.uk

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