Just after 3:20 p.m. on Friday 24th Feb, call-handlers from Aberdyfi Search & Rescue Team were made aware of a woman with a leg injury on Cader Idris.

The 41 year old from Llanidloes was walking on the Minffordd path with a family group when she slipped and fell a short distance on the slopes above Llyn Cau, sustaining a suspected fracture to her lower leg.

Given the serious nature of the injury, assistance from the Coastguard Helicopter was requested, and the aircraft was making its initial approaches as Team volunteers gathered at the foot of the mountain. With the casualty on a steep slope and with a rapidly falling cloud-base it was possible that the helicopter would not be able to access the site directly,  and so a stretcher party was assembled at a nearby landing site ready to assist with the extraction.

In the event, the helicopter was able to lower the winchman to the scene, and after some initial treatment to relieve significant pain and to stabilise the injury, the woman was winched aboard the aircraft and flown to Ysbyty Gwynedd at Bangor for further hospital-based treatment. Team volunteers then ascended to the accident site to meet up with another party member who had waited with the casualty, and to escort him down off the mountain in the failing light. Everyone was safely off the hill by 6:20 p.m.

At around 5:30 p.m.  call handlers from the Team were made aware of 3 men and a dog sheltering in the summit hut on Cader Idris.

The men, in their 30's and from the Birmingham area, had started up the Minffordd path with the intention of completing the Mynydd Moel loop, but after a food stop in the summit-hut, they stepped out to find the cloud had closed in to give extremely poor visibility. A short foray left them doubting their own navigation, and with the prospect of encroaching darkness they recognised that they might be in trouble. Finding their way back to the summit, a call was made to alert mountain rescue.

The group, appropriately equipped for a day on the mountain, initially intended to stay in the hut and try again at first light the following morning. However, with no overnight equipment and food all used up, coupled with poor ground conditions and the forecast for gales sweeping in overnight and into Monday, it was agreed that a rescue party would collect them and escort them down to safety.

With patches of snow and ice as far down as 350m, rescue volunteers made their way carefully up the ice-glazed rocks of the Pony Path to reach the stranded party. The men were in good spirits and ready to move, and rescuers were quickly picking their way back down the mountain again. Everyone was safely off the mountain by 10:00 p.m.