One young climber died and another was injured after they fell over the weekend on the United Kingdom’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis in Scotland, rescuers said Monday.
The volunteer Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team said in a post on its Facebook page that Scottish police had asked the group to help rescue the fallen climbers on Saturday evening.
“The team treated and rescued one climber with serious injuries who had managed to move further down the hill,” the rescue organization said, adding that it had to return the following day to search for the second climber “due to some very challenging weather conditions, combined with hazardous ground.”
The man rescued by the team was 30 years old, according to CBS News’ partner network BBC News, which said his injuries were not life-threatening.
The rescuers then returned to the mountain on Sunday morning and recovered the other man, a 22-year-old, “who was sadly deceased.”
Scotland’s Daily Express said the pair had fallen some 200 feet during an ascent of the mountain.
Police Scotland told the BBC that the deceased climber’s family was notified, but neither of the men’s names were released.
At just over 4,400 feet, Ben Nevis is the tallest mountain in all of the British Isles. It draws roughly more than 125,000 visitors per year, according to Scotland’s official tourist board. Many of those visitors from around the world try to summit the mountain, which can be done by experienced walkers in good conditions in around 7 to 10 hours.
Weather in Scotland’s Highlands region, however, is notoriously fickle. Particularly in the early spring, and especially at altitude, it can change extremely quickly. There was some snowfall on the mountain on Saturday.
A total of 100 fatalities have been recorded on Ben Nevis since record-keeping began in 1849, but “there’s a good chance the number could be higher due to the potential of lone climbers who may never have been reported as lost,” according to data compiled for the BBC’s “Countryfile” program. A father and son died while walking on the mountain in May last year.
While Ben Nevis is the tallest of Britain’s peaks, however, it is not generally considered the deadliest. At Snowdon, a mountain in Wales, an average of eight people die annually, according to the organization Mountain Rescue England and Wales.
