Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation

Ogwen Valley is the most northerly of the main valleys in the Snowdonia National Park, North Wales, UK. The mountains that surround the valley are about 1000 metres high and the terrain varies quite considerably. We have cliffs that reach about 300-400 metres in height and are very popular with climbers. The Carneddau mountains to the north of our base at Bryn Poeth (Oggie Base) are high and open, but there is also open moorland with heather, bracken and sheep, as well as areas of dense forest and fast rivers around Capel Curig. This mixture of terrain calls for the team members to be competent in both high angle rescue work as well as open terrain search techniques.

As a rescue team we have between 60-80 callouts per year. There are approximately 50 people on the team, all volunteers, many of whom are qualified to a high standard of First Aid. We also have a number of Search Managers and Swift Water Rescue technicians. Although we are completely independent of the Police we usually work at their request; Team Members are then contacted by telephone or pager. Our usual response time to an incident is typically 20 minutes before deploying someone on to the hill and a full team callout can be effected within 30 minutes. RAF Valley has a flight of two Seaking SAR Helicopters 20 minutes' flying time away and we often work together in rescuing and searching for people.