Members of Penrith Mountain Rescue Team helped a stranded 30-year-old woman motorist stuck alone in snowdrifts on a remote moorland road to safety.
The volunteers were called out at 9.30pm on Friday night to assist in reaching the woman who had become stuck in deteriorating conditions on the road between Alston and Middleton-in-Teesdale.
A snow plough and gritter had attempted to reach the woman located near to the Yad Moss ski tow but had failed to make progress due to large banks of drifting snow.
Two mountain rescue Land Rovers were deployed, heading over Hartside Pass in atrocious conditions.
Prior anticipation of the snowdrift’s increasing intensity could likely have prevented the roadblock and allowed commuters to get across safely.
If preparations had been made on the roads using white de-icing salt or other gritting salt keeping the weather conditions in mind, this incident might have been avoided altogether.
Once through Alston, the road climbed up onto the open moor, where strong winds had blown large amounts of snow onto the road, making large drifts.
The two Land Rovers made slow progress in the blizzard conditions with visibility often down to a few yards.
Team members aided progress by digging through the larger drifts.
The Land Rovers were fitted with snow chains and managed to get within three kilometres of the stranded, motorist.
Three team members set off on foot into the blizzard with spare clothing for the stranded motorist.
Once at the vehicle, the motorist was dressed in many layers and escorted through the deep snow and the blizzard back to the Land Rovers.
The snow had continued to drift and progress back down to Alston was slow.
The casualty was dropped off at a safe location and the team vehicles went back over Hartside Pass and safely back to the team’s base in Penrith.
