Last year, with most physical races cancelled because of Covid-19, Peak Raid organised a series of very successful GPS based virtual events. Runners who took part were encouraged to donate to Buxton Mountain Rescue Team and as a result of their generosity we are delighted to have received a donation of £1613.20 to support our work.

Peak Raid races, based in the Peak District National Park, are a series of fell running events which combine challenging navigation, route choice and terrain. Due to the recent restrictions these have been GPS based events using the …

This week we were delighted to receive a very generous donation of £1118 from Macclesfield Harriers and Athletic Club.

During the recent months of lockdown, the club arranged a series of ‘virtual events’ to encourage their members to keep up with their daily exercise while following guidelines on staying covid-compliant.

The Harriers and the Team have many connections over many years, with ex and current team members also being part of the Harriers. In addition to many Harriers enter the local running events, many of which are marshalled by …

Its number 16 in an ongoing series of quizzes by our very own Quiz Mistress, Gillian Halliday. 

As many of you will know Gillian has been producing quizzes, the proceeds of which are sent to the Team, for many years. The Team is very grateful to Gillian and her ongoing support.

This time, there are 60 questions, and the theme is British place names which include the name of a British river.

SAE plus £1 cash/cheque made payable to Mrs G. Halliday, to ‘Lorien’. Main Road. Stickney. …

The operation of the team’s drone section has been reviewed over the last couple of months. The drone pilots are certified by the Civil Aviation Authority and fly under strict operating rules that are laid down in our ‘Permission to fly Commercial Operations’ document.

It is a requirement that pilots maintain certain levels of competency, complete a specified minimum amount of flight time, and ensure operational safety. Recently, the drone section completed their first face to face training session for several months.

To reduce the possibility of the spread of Covid-19, …

In August 2020, the team worked with the YouTuber, Adam B and the long running children’s programme, Blue Peter.

Part of the CBBC’s programme was to introduce Adam to the role of becoming a Blue Peter presenter and following tradition, he was tasked with a very interesting challenge! His challenge was to complete a stretcher lower down from the top of the quarry face to imitate a crag rescue with the team stretcher. He did brilliantly!

The team have made a short video which can be seen on the …

Following a request from the local Medical Centre, both Buxton MRT and Kinder MRT were placed on standby to assist the transportation of elderly members of the community to the Medical Centre for their vaccines. At the time, heavy snow and icy conditions had been forecast and the support of the mountain rescue teams 4 wheel drive vehicles and casualty care skills was requested by the Medical Centre.

A short tweet by one of our social media team was picked up by Sky News, who arrived at our base the following morning to talk …

2020 – What a year this has been. Team Leader, Neil Carruthers summed it up as having “presented us with a number of challenges in terms of how we operated in a COVID secure manner, adding a considerable extra amount of work ensuring that we have cleaned and or quarantined all equipment which has been used when dealing with casualties.

The number of call outs is into three figures. When you also consider the team did not attend any incidents in the first half of the initial lock down, it is a good indicator of …

When the Peak District National Park turns into a winter wonderland it is the perfect time for team members in small groups to brush up on their winter skills.

Today was the third of four winter skills training sessions led by experienced team member and WMCI mountain instructor, Mark. It was a good start, there was snow! Plans had to be changed slightly to allow for a safer journey as the roads had become a little slippy earlier on in the day.

Members had a very enjoyable and …

Buxton Mountain Rescue Team are lucky to have close working relationships with many partner agencies and other voluntary rescue teams. This is particularly true of our close working relationship with Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation (DCRO). We do in fact share our Buxton Base with DCRO, where our emergency response vehicles are parked in adjacent garages at Buxton Fire and Rescue Centre, and we have worked closely on numerous callouts, training sessions, and even shared equipment and team members!

It doesn’t end there though. An agreement has just been put into place between the …

Buxton Mountain Rescue Team needs to replace one of its stretchers and is reaching out to the community to help fund the purchase. A stretcher recently failed a routine safety test which prevents us from using it on crag rescues or during helicopter winches. Failing a test certainly sounds alarming, and to us to have to replace it, it is; like many charities, our income is significantly down this year, so we’re asking you directly for help.

Stretchers are probably one of our most important pieces of equipment, and are used on almost every …