PS: My friend Disasterthon (who is also based in the UK) has covered this disaster, too! Take a look at his video if you want another take on this one: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fL6FfbaFlavRnoE.html.

The guy who taught me a lot about mountains told me "never split a large group into small ones!!!!" And never abandon people behind especially if they have less experience or equipment, thinking that they will catch up.

Why would you put the less experienced guide in charge of the younger and inexperienced kids!? The younger and less experienced need more support in good conditions, let alone frigid bad weather.

4:31 _"They split into smaller groups, with the more experienced hikers [...] striking out ahead"_ Stupidest decision ever.

My father’s best friend lost his daughter in this tragedy. He was never the same, he could never get over her death.

once i was telling a neighbour's friend from europe about someone who got lost on a canoe trip and did the right thing by staying where she was until someone found her. neighbour's friend thought this was weird and was like 'why didn't she just keep canoeing until she got to the next village?' i was like 'this is canada. there is no next village.'

The kids huddling around the smalles one to protect him.... Man. That's both heartbreaking as well as heartwarming...

What a sad tragedy. When Catherine saw the rescuers, but, her yelling for help couldn't be heard, I thought of my whistle. A common sport whistle is something worth carrying at all times, certainly out of doors.

Putting all the older experienced together, and all the younger inexperienced in one group is unforgivable! Especially the adults that ran the school.

The first rule of hiking - the group stays TOGETHER. If one turns back, everyone turns back. The group never splits. I love to hike, camp, etc. and I've been disappointed at having to turn back several times but better arriving home safe than dead.

"We should get rid of emergency shelters because some people may misuse them" is such a bad take

Speaking from experience having been stranded in a bothy for the night at 10,000 ft I think it is madness to have demolished it.

I can't. There were so many mistakes made. I would never call myself experienced hiker (though I attended and helped organised several treks) but red flags were raising left and right when I was watching this video: - never split the group - unless there are two routes (harder and easier) - and never lose the tail entirely, wait for them to catch up. Optimally, have a second experienced guide at the very end. - especially, never split the group based on experience - the moment you have split a group into experienced and inexperienced, one of them is set for failure. - never start the hike late into the day - start as early as possible so in case of any unplanned events you still have time to safely manage them. - never start the hike with ski lift/cable way (unless you know 100% the route is below your group's experience) - leave it for the easy return - this way you'll get a chance to see if any of the participants isn't fit for the hike and needs more assistance. - bad weather? Seriously reassess your plan and scale it down. It's better to have it uneventful than to have someone die. Extremely bad weather? CANCEL THE PLAN AND WAIT IT OUT! - keep your eyes (not literally) on the emergency kit - know where it is at all times and keep it safe - it will try to keep you safe in return. All these points I learned when dealing with experienced adult hikers. I wouldn't even attempt to plan any winter trip like that for unexperienced teens. In mountains things can go very wrong very quick in fair summer weather

Here in the US, parks often urge hikers to let the slowest, least experienced people set the pace for a hike. When better, more experienced hikers outpace those who are slower, disaster can easily follow

Children leading children on a potentially deadly trip, being late november and freezing cold is a recipe for disaster. They should never have been allowed to go.

What a horrifying experience for Raymond, having your friends huddle around you for warmth, all slowly dying one by one, knowing that you’ll probably die soon too if you’re not found… that poor kid must have been absolutely traumatised. That’s truly the stuff of nightmares.

The fact that the older children protected the youngest with their lives breaks my heart.

Damn Catherine had perseverance, if she hadn't managed to go on walking, stumbling and crawling toward safety they wouldn't have found anyone alive.

As others have said, splitting the "experienced" up from the inexperienced was ridiculous and definitely makes me question just how experienced Ben actually was. Given that he died 7 years later in another outdoors accident, I'm thinking this leader had a wee bit too much overconfidence...

Man this is crazy! I was hiking in the Cairngorms for the first time, for 3 days last weekend and it was a nightmare - the weather was awful and I took a tumble into the Geldie Burn and hypothermia set in so quickly, it was terrifying! Luckily, we happened upon one of these bothys and the Mountain Bothy Association just so happened to be having their first annual meeting is over 3 years - what an amazing group of people, they volunteer to maintain the 100 odd bothys around Scotland and all seemed to have a story to share similar to mine, when a Bothy and the people within had saved their lives. They got me in front of the fire and were all popping up and putting their gas heaters around me, one of the guys even pulled out a drill and rope and hung me up a washing line to dry all of my clothes and sleeping bag! A few of the guys also had their guitars so a night of music and a lot of whiskey followed. It was an amazing night with some really special people that made everything worth while, including the hypothermia! Feeling even luckier after watching this 😬

A friend of mine, Mick Taylor, was part of the Mountain Rescue for this incident. The only time I’ve ever seen him get emotional was when we were out climbing and ended up on the plateau where he recalled that night. Sad times

I can't imagine the trauma of what the Raymond, the sole survivor of the group, must've gone through. Getting trapped with your school friends, in unbearably cold weather for multiple days, not knowing if you'd live or die. And when he did get rescued, the fact that it was *only* him to survive (outside of Catherine), oh man the survivor's guilt he must've gone through. Hopefully Raymond, wherever he is now, is at peace with the events of the disaster. Time heals all wounds, but the scars will most likely remain.

imagine being the one surviving child, watching all your friends die - one by one - as they huddle around you to keep you safe. the survivor's guilt & PTSD must have been immense

This reminded me of the students who died here hiking Mount Hood in 1986. The teacher should have turned the group back once the weather turned bad but he thought it would be a good experience for them to hike in freezing wind and blowing snow.

A mate of mine once went on an expedition in Scotland with some friends from uni, in the summer, not in the Cairngorms. They had plenty of experience hiking in the English Lake District but this turned out to be NO preparation for Scotland. The ruggedness of the terrain and the changeable weather took it out of them, as did their inability to read the land. They kept getting bogged down in soggy ground, having to expend energy diverting around them, with by then soggy boots and the attendant blisters starting to form. This was in the days before people all had mobile phones or GPS handsets. After a couple.of days they realised they were well behind schedule, consuming more food than they expected, more tired and beat up than they expected to be. Thankfully, it dawned on them unanimously, almost at the same time, that they had to turn back. Scotland had kicked their arsed and they didn't want to become statistics.

Given the demonstrable effectiveness of the shelter in saving a bunch of kids, wouldn’t building more of them be a better solution rather than destroying the existing shelters? I grew up in the Ruahine mountain range of New Zealand, and we had shelters (called “huts”) dotted around the ranges. I’ve stayed overnight in these shelters during hiking trips. Having a place that’s clean and dry and has a fireplace can be life-saving. Our rule was that you always left it with another fire set (but not lit!) for the next person to arrive because they might be arriving an inch from death in cold wet weather, and a fire could save them.

I'm a Canadian who grew up regularly experiencing -30c to -40c temperatures during the winter. Just wanted to add a bit about what it's like to do anything in temperatures that cold. Material gets stiffer and more brittle, including your clothes, jacket, etc, so that the fabric is 'snapping' when you move, and crinkles are held, making it easier for gaps to form at the edges. Of course, your extremities and exposed skin get numbed and stiff as well, making it harder to move and do anything. The moisture of your breath freezes on anything it touches, building up frost, and this can include your skin, eyelashes, etc. (my stepdad once got a mustache-icicle during winter pictures). As a kid I once lived in a rural area with a long driveway I would have to walk all the way down to reach the school bus. During the winter my mom would dress us up with tights on under our pants and snow pants for the extra layer. By the time I got to the end of the driveway my eyelashes and any hair poking out from my hat would be frosted white. There's no escape from the cold. You can tuck your hands in your armpits, but your body is already struggling to keep warm as it is, and you just end up with chilled armpits. The numbness cannot be understated. Exposed skin starts to feel like blubber. Doing anything physical for any length of time when you are in temperatures this cold SUCKS. It's just a hundred times harder than doing it in warm weather. These experiences are in safe environments, where I was able to get warm within an hour or two, and had proper winter protection. I've never experienced frostbite or being so cold I was in danger. Spending two nights in the open with a snowstorm on them must have been hellish.

I'm completely speechless, can't find words to describe the humanity of those children by trying to keep the youngest boy of the group alive, and to know he's the only who survived from that group it's beyond words, can't imagine how forever thankful his parents must have been ❤️💕RIP sweet souls

As a Swiss mountaineer who has quite some experience (done multiple 4000m+ in the alps and the caucasus as well as doing winter mountaineering) I find it hard to overstate, how bad a whiteout can be and how much harder it is to move in high snow. Even today with GPS technology and modern weather forecast you can easily get lost (electronics don't like the cold) and get surprised by mountainous weather changes. Doing hikes in the winter should always be done carefully with consideration towards own experience, the experience of the participants, weather forecast, emergency shelters, optional paths, equipment etc.

The police Sergeant in charge of the rescue said this, which I feel rings true: “There was no need for the tragedy ever to have happened. To my mind, it was an expedition planned for the benefit of the instructors rather than the teenagers - it was far, far too ambitious for them.” What struck me about all this is the lack of experience. When it was noted that the 20 year old guide had lost the flares in the snow, that was a real face-palm moment. She was one of the survivors too. I was reading about the aftermath, and the 23 year old guide actually died while mountaineering 7 years later. The 20 year old moved to Canada, which is not uncommon for people in Scotland, but I expect she was happy to be free of reminders of the event and she has refused to talk about it. On a happier note, the small boy who survived went on to become a top competitive canoeist.

So the plan was to just leave all of the younger kids behind with two less experienced guides in an area known for it's sudden, unpredictable inclimate weather and just assume they'd be fine?

I live just outside the Cairngorms and regularly hike there in winter. It never ceases to surprise me how many folks rock up totally inadequately prepared. Either people who don't do much hiking or hikers obsessed with cutting weight in their packs. I think, maybe because the UK in general doesn't get much extreme weather in terms of snow or cold, that people get a false sense of security. It really is a place where it's better to have and not need, than need and not have.

I live near the Cairngorms and when i was 14 was skiing there with my school on a weekend trip. It was a sunny calm day but forecast to get bad later and they said they may close the ski slopes mid afternoon depending on the weather. By mid afternoon we still had the sun and We skied down the slopes and got the lift back up, but on the return up one time there was a cloud coming down Cairngorm mountain. On the way up the lift we entered the cloud and it was insane. My teacher was right next to me on the lift and the wind was so strong i was shouting at the top of my voice and he could barely hear me! We could not see anything more than about 2 m as it was complete white out and some people had no goggles. Without goggles you cannot even open your eyes as the wind blows ice particles into them making them freezing and it impossible to see. At the top the mountain patrols told us they closed the mountain and we were some of the last to be allowed up as the weather changed so rapidly it caught them out- to illustrate how fast this changed, when we started on the lift it was still ok but by the time we were half way up they closed the mountain. They were accounting for those of us still heading up on lifts and making sure we got back down but my friend fell hurting his leg just as we were about to ski down. I volunteered to wait with him and a ski patrol member while they got a skidoo to stretcher him down. After i skied down with the ski patrol guy slowly as we could see much and about half way down we dropped out of the cloud and it was sunny and calm again! It was insane how fast it changed and how big a contrast a few hundred meter made. I learned how fast it can turn very scary and i saw how these mountains can be deadly. I always tell people going into the higher and remote mountains to really consider it if in October to april and they are not so experienced and in summer still pack a bag with cold weather gear and shelter even if its bright sunshine at the bottom it can easily be below zero with the windchill at the top. Sadly people are still killed every year in Scotlands mountains. I think the mountains relatively low altitude gives a false sense of security. Its important to remember Scotland has a maritime climate and the weather can change extremely fast. If anyone is going into the mountains please monitor the forecasts but always be prepared for bad weather regardless of the forecast and let someone know your route and expected return time. It may seem like overkill but it could just save your life.

interesting how they chose 18, 20, and 23 year old guides. in my eyes those ages are "kids" as well, in terms of overall life experience. though i will say i'm amazed at Catherine's bravery and determination.

ALWAYS walk to the speed of the slowest - everyone has to get home.

The thought of the larger kids surrounding the smaller one to try to keep him warm is heartbreaking, considering their fate. These were good kids...

The kids all huddled around the smallest one of the group, and he managed to survive… What great empathy humans are capable of 💗

Wow, as a hiker myself I don't think they should have destroyed the shelters. I'm kind of surprised they did.

Who the heck thought this was a good idea? 15-year-olds in waist-deep snow overnight? And then they demolished the emergency shelter the surviving group used...

It's incredible to think that a group of inexperienced school kids were venturing up on the Cairngorms with bad weather forecast, no matter who was guiding them, and that they had no emergency rations, no camping stove to make a hot meal, not even a flashlight or a whistle - which each person should've had - just one pack of flares that couldn't be found. This was a disaster waiting to happen...

The would be a terrifying situation for an adult, unimaginably terrifying for those poor children. I must commend them. Even in such a dark, cold situation they huddled together and kept the smallest among them warm. I think of them as heroes very good on them for doing what they could.

The smallest child survived with his fellows huddled around him to keep him warm. Imagine the survivors guilt with that!

Those bothies should have been upgraded, not demolished.

Catherine is a goddamn hero. Imagine walking, then crawling in snow until you literally collapse. And she was STILL able to tell them how to find the kids.

Honestly one of the hardest of your videos to take in, in my opinion. Hearing such things happening to kids is painful, genuinely soul breaking

Demolishing the shelter is like eliminating toilets to discourage people from venturing too far from home.

They were 500 yards from shelter too. Catherine Davidson's legs were locked into a kneeling position, her hands were frozen solid when the helicopter crew found her. The spot where they were stranded is called Feith Buidhe

Amazing to hear you talk about this. Just last week, my dad and I were hiking along a similar route (Ben MacDhui to Cairn Gorm) as part of a camping trip, and he told me about this incident. He even pointed out to me where the Curran bothy had been. He was ages with these kids and a keen mountaineer even then, so it was interesting to hear his recollection, then to hear this. The mountains are extraordinary, particularly the Cairngorms, and I would encourage anyone to visit and explore these incredible landscapes. But please, above all else, take care of yourself: there is no such thing as being overly cautious. (And on a lighter note, take midge spray if you go to the Cairngorms. You will need it.)

We had a great outdoor club at my school. I was lucky enough to go on two winter weekends in Glencoe in 1981. We were the first school kids in Edinburgh to be allowed on a winter trek since the Ainslie Park disaster. We were only allowed to go after a lot of training and were finally allowed after being given the nod by one of our teachers who was an ex military PT instructor.

This one is particularly heartbreaking because it wasn’t caused by greed, or systemic negligence. Just inexperienced young adults guiding even less experienced children. I can’t imagine the pain the survivors felt

My mum went to this school and was in the same class as most of these children. She hadn’t been able to go on the trip as her parents (my grandparents) couldn’t afford it. She lost one of her best friends in this disaster...very sad, and not something she likes to talk about, even now. You covered this story so well! Thank you.

The fact that the others huddled around the smaller one to keep him warm was sooo sweet. They didn’t think about themselves only, that’s the humanity I wanna see now

The fact all the other kids had huddled around the youngest and saved their life over theres made me tear up. it warms my heart that even in such an unfortunate situation, where these children where so fearful, but still, in all the fear, and even with their slowed thinking, they chose to ensure they gave that kid as much warmth as possible and saved their life.

So their solution to the problem of not having enough emergency shelters was to demolish two existing ones instead of just adding more? Did i get that right?

I was stuck on Mt Snowdon when the forecast "clear weather" changed for the (very) worse during our descent back in the 1970's. Fortunately we'd planned for the very variable weather there and our 2-man tents provided more than adequate shelter overnight.

I'm a Scottish school teacher and I need at least 3 other in-school staff members to take my P6 class to the neighbouring park. Outside staff members such as play-leaders, adventure guides etc are not counted in staff ratios. The whole idea of sending a group of 15 year olds off into the Cairngorms with three camp workers who had nothing to do with the school, who were barely older than the kids, and who obviously didn't have a clue about the dangers of the hike they had planned is unbelievable. Sometimes risk assessments and head counts and staff ratios are annoying but my god am I grateful for them. You don't cut corners or take risks when you're responsible for children.

I love these Fascinating Horror short documentaries. They are not too long but not too short that the main details don't get covered. For me it is also an encouragement to do further research and find out more. This particular story about the 1971 Cairngorm disaster is one I have looked at more. There is a newspaper interview with the young lad that survived which was made in 2021 and it tells us that the second leader Catherine went to Canada and has never been heard from since. The guilt must weigh so heavily on survivors, particularly if they are group leaders. As another person commented here, the decision by the leader to split the groups up and the let the strongest group go first was absolutely and utterly fatal for the weaker climbers. Keep these great documentaries coming. Thanks.

I've experienced pretty major hypothermia before. It is truly debilitating. I'm amazed Catherine did even as much as she was able to! Your body shuts down and wants to do ANYTHING except take action.

I'm curious if the hike was approved under the assumption/understanding that the most experienced "instructor" would be with the entire group the entire time. The fact that they split up at all in those conditions baffles the mind. Product of a different era?

Dude, this video (and the fact that I'm listening the spooky stories for the last 6 months) made me realize you should absolutely do these as well! Your storytelling and voice are so ripe for these 🖤

I remember this incident in the news. I live about three hours drive from Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. It is the deadliest mountain in America as it has some of the worst weather in the world an many people underestimate how dangerous it actually is.

Hindsight is always 20/20, that being said the fact that they had the more experienced guide go with the more experienced students makes no sense to me. Seems like it should’ve been the other way around

How did this happen? Sans effective communication the whole group should only go as fast as the slowest member! At least put the most experienced leader with the inexperienced group if you have no option but to split up.

omg I cried the moment you mentioned their names. it was soo heartbreaking. Rest In Peace, young souls..🙏💔💔

Going on a campout bothy hike in Scotland in February. I feel so inspired.

Demolishing the shelters are not going to stop pig-headed hikers from pushing their limits, and this decision is massively dangerous. If they were worried about hikers pressing on for a distance deemed too far for safety, why did they not half that distance by adding another shelter inbetween? The one thing you can count on is that people will vastly overestimate their abilities, and now there are two less failsafes in place to save them from themselves.

Never set off on any kind of expedition into the wild without a whistle. Simplest and most effective safety measure you can have. The first search party would surely have heard a whistle where her voice was inaudible.

I visited the Cairngorms area several times as a teenager in the 1970s, but have never heard this story before! This is a good presentation of the events (except for the rather dubious introduction), but would have been even better with some animated maps showing the routes, shelters, etc.

A great Act of Courage by a group of teenagers to save that boy. Medal worthy.

I've been survivor-level cold, and it definitely does affect your thinking. It makes you into an idiot who refuses to move.

I mean never split up on a mountain, that's just common sense right there.

I have walked all the Munros and late one October was caught in a white out in a blizzard below Cairn Toul. It took my top quality down gear and absolute proficiency with a compass to get to safety. I remember having to just trust the compass as I could not see any thing, and realised I was getting cold and there was nothing more I could do. Talking school kids up on to the Cairngorm plateau in November with a bad forecast is crazy.

These poor children deserved so much better. Sounds like just the perfect storm of mistakes and not thinking culminated in a terrible end for them. Very interesting stuff.

One detail you missed is that the children's parents had no idea they were going up the mountains. They thought they were just going to the Laganlia Centre

In February 2018, a group of 40 people plus 2 guides, attempted to climb Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntoohil. A 14km hike up and down Carrauntoohil can take an experienced climber 6 hours....it took me 9 hours and that was in summer. So the 42 started up Carrauntoohil but they hit bad weather, snowy tracks, darkness was setting in and the climbers were ill-equipped fir the climb, some wearing trainers. They called Kerry Mountain rescue for help. While getting them off the mountain, they discovered a woman injured with a head wound, on The Devil's Ladder. She wasn't part of the original group but a tourist who had attempted to climb the mountain solo. She was very lucky to be discovered, as she wouldn't have survived the night.

One thing I've always heard about this sort of situation is 1. Stay put, 2. Put up markers that will be hard to miss (e.g. make a flag) and 3. Do *anything* you can to make shelter. Dig a hole in the snow if you have to, it's loads better than nothing.

I love your episodes about the "small" disasters that one would never have heard of otherwise. The major news and videos only report on large incidents where many people die and ignore the lesser ones as not being "newsworthy". Thank you for ignoring this and telling us about these situations that were so horrifying for the participants and their families.

Always carry a loud whistle with you. Yelling will carry your voice only very short distance and will tire you quickly. A good whistle, on the other hand, will carry over a great distance and can help pierce interfering noise, and it requires relatively little energy or effort. Even a relatively poor child’s whistle is far more effective than yelling. A coach/referee’s whistle or large emergency whistle has always been essential safety equipment on my backpacking trips. They are cheap, compact and they can make the difference between life and death.

what really got me was that no one from the more experienced group attached themselves to the group with minors (ie people under 18) they all just assumed the second group would be fine. There should always be someone with actual, proper climbing experience among a group of the inexperienced.

My dad always insisted while hiking & backpacking you only go as fast as your slowest hiker. Never ever split a group.

Thanks for sharing this story of tragedy and warning. My father was born and raised in the High Sierra mountains of eastern California. After returning from the Vietnam war, he guided many family and Boy Scout backpacking trips into the mountains, with only one incident. A bear came through our camp one night, apparently attracted by my cousin's stinky feet! With one swipe, the bear ripped open the tent, sleeping bag, and Charlie's foot. I don't remember if there were screams or scandal, but the bear left immediately. Excellent first aid was applied, including my Aunt sewing his foot up with a small kit we carried for minor clothing repairs. Charlie was then carried to the Tunnel Meadow ranger station on an improvised stretcher and flown out to a hospital. Many other stories can be told about that trip, but suffice to say that the Scout motto to "Be Prepared" is not in vain.

Lets take a bunch of inexperienced kids on a long hike in winter, and just to make it more interesting, lets split the group up and send the most experienced ahead. What could go wrong?

"The U.k is a place of few wildernesses" Have u been to Birmingham at 3am?

I love this channel!! Detailed stories about incidents in the past I was unaware of. Thank you!

April '71 and I was also 15 year old corporal in the Rossall School Combined Cadet Force Arduous Training Cadre. We were in the Cairngorms too, and also shepherded by two utterly incompetent masters who panicked and deferred leadership to us boys in a white-out on top of Ben Macdui. We roped up (luckily as we hit a bad cornice), we walked with a pilot on a bearing, we looked after our lads with exposure, we got off the mountain by glissading down the corrie. On another day, we bivvied on a frozen lake - whilst the masters found it too cold and absconded to a bothie without telling us. They were never criticised or sanctioned for their incompetent and selfish behaviour. What I'm trying to say is so called 'adult teachers' can be incredibly incompetent, repeat their mistakes and not be caught out until after a tragedy. I wholly blame the 'adults' in this. Cairngorm weather, and any high mountain range can go really bad really quickly and you don't want to be up there with 'leaders' who have nil experience and even less courage or sense. Should locked them up.

This was used as a story to try and disuade children and unprepared/untrained people from venturing out in winter when I was growing up in the Scottish highlands. Even when we got older and more experienced, we stuck to the months of May-August for any longer treks, and were very well prepared for even the shorter Treks outside those months. Sadly, it’s still an annual occurrence that people get stuck unprepared out in the Grampian Mountains. The number of people that get pulled off Ben Nevis by helicopter in December, some even without hiking books, is ridiculous.

Im a girl guide leader and took a group of 30 girls to the cairngorms for a 5 mile hike and adventure weekend just before lockdown in March last year. Our group was supervised by serving members of the RAF, Navy and even Gurkhas! That's what you call prepared! I couldn't imagine taking young people somewhere like that without a good team all round. Such an awful tragedy. Lots of my family went to Ainsle Park and I'm so glad none went on this trip!

Wow. Thanks for posting. By 1980 I had qualified B.Ed Durham,as an Outdoor Education Teacher and held the MLC ( Mountain Leadership Cert ) I should have been working in those Centres professionally. but Thatchers cuts closed them down and I was stuck in schools doing my subsid subject. I was also very well qualified in canoeing and sailing. So was sickened when an unqualified 'instructor' killed a kid and herself doing a basic kayak session in Lyme Bay was it? I went abroad and set up a Centre for an International School and had 10 years of safe and adventurous stuff going on. It was VERY popular. We had great hopes for OE in UK . But my career was over before it had started. Such a waste Kids never even came close to being dead on my courses .

I hike in the cairngorms, and even when the forecast says it'll be good weather I always make sure I have everything I need with me to outlast a storm and freezing weather. To do otherwise is just stupid. Like the old saying goes, "there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothes" I also have a funky bright orange emergency bivvy bag too. Like a giant waterproof bag with windows you can climb inside. Never once had to use it yet, which I'm actually kinda bummed about!

I really can't figure out how tearing down those,emergency shelters make things safer - Regardless I am glad that no further deaths occurred after this.

Go hiking in winter with no emergency backup plan and split into groups that are a far distance from each other. What was the leader thinking? I take the side of having emergency shelters for this very reason. They save the lives of people that unfortunately don't know what they are doing.

An horrible disaster. I spend a lot of time in the mountains, once on Cairngorm summit, I was feeling a bit unhappy about my situation{mist wind cold etc) and decided to head down when I saw a group of people walking up from the ski lift, totally inadequately prepared for their situation, they had taken the lift up, in summer clothing and sandals. Once had to sleep out in Nepal at high altitude in a tent for 2 days waiting for a snowstorm to abate, I cannot imagine the horror of overnighting exposed to the elements., horrible experience/death. Thanks for the video.

I've been to Cairngorms. Some of the most beautiful scenery in all of the world. I went in the summer and experience quite chilly weather even then.

I'd like to imagine that the the narrator is the crow in the channel's icon. A calm yet subtly eerie tone when talking about death, feels like the perfect voice for a morbid corvid

There's one vital piece of equipment I'd say Catherine was missing that could've saved more lives: A survival whistle It's often overshadowed by just about everyone in terms of camping/bushcraft etc, and in cases like this, it's when it should be used

Absolutely floored by the decision to remove the shelters instead of making more / increasing accessibility.

Have spent many occasions walking in the Cairngorms, never in winter fortunately, but can attest to the statement that the weather can turn rapidly - having experienced snow in late June on one occasion!

Its amazing to hear stories about the Cairngorms, even if the story is horrible

I can't even imagine the despair those kids must have felt, so close to salvation, yet being unable to do anything but watch as the rescue team just walked right on by...

Even in 1971, meteorology was good at forecasting a large snowfall as was depicted in the vid. Avid and well trained hikers would have balked at such a trek given the forecasted large snowfall. The disaster that followed was one of folly and arrogance when you add the untrained guides and 15 and 16 year olds that had no idea the arduous journey ahead.