Mountain rescue teams in England and Wales were called out 3,968 times in 2025, and the two factors they recorded most often were poor decision making and inexperience.
So here’s the short answer. Outdoor instructors, leaders and guides can help reduce avoidable mountain rescue call-outs by taking what we teach to the places new walkers actually learn, and by teaching the decisions rather than just the route. Most of the knowledge that keeps a small problem small already exists. It just sits in courses and club huts that the people who need it never find.
This one is written for my fellow instructors, leaders and guides. We’ll look at what the rescue records say, the question rescue teams have asked in public, five things we can do about it, and the lines we should never cross.
If you’re a walker who has found your way here, stay. It’s really about what you deserve from the people who teach this stuff.
What Do the Rescue Records Actually Say?
Mountain Rescue England and Wales publishes the contributory factors its teams record at incidents. One incident can carry more than one, so these are mentions rather than people. In 2025 the top of the list looked like this.
| Contributory factor, England and Wales 2025 | Times recorded |
|---|---|
| Poor decision making or human error | 939 |
| Inexperience of pursuit | 644 |
| Weather | 518 |
| Equipment failure or poorly equipped | 241 |
| Tired, fatigued or unfit | 199 |
| Poor visibility | 138 |
Source: the MREW Annual Review 2026.
Look at the top two. Weather is the one thing on that list none of us can change. Decisions and experience are what we teach for a living.
The records don’t say what each of those decisions was, and I’m not going to guess. But the Lake District Search and Mountain Rescue Association is blunt about the bigger picture. Its standing advice to walkers says “Many calls to Mountain Rescue Teams are avoidable.”
That word needs pinning down straight away, because the whole piece rests on it. Avoidable means avoidable by planning, skills and kit before the day. It never means avoidable by not phoning. More on that further down.
If you want the full picture across England, Wales, Scotland and the Lakes, we’ve been through why people actually need mountain rescue figure by figure.
Mountain Rescue Has Asked How to Reach New Walkers. Who Answers?
When Ordnance Survey analysed the 2024 rescue figures, 18 to 24 year olds came out as the age group most likely to need mountain rescue. The press ran with social media.
MREW’s own annual review describes what that left them with. “Media interest focused on the negative influences of social media and route apps, but left us with a challenge: how best to reach this group…”
In the same review, Jacqui Hanson, media officer for the North Wales Mountain Rescue Association, spelt out why that’s hard. Younger people, she wrote, “are less likely to visit our websites, follow us on Facebook, or source information from traditional news media.” Instead, “they’re on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.”
And it isn’t only the young. Between 2019 and 2024 the number of 18 to 24 year olds assisted in England and Wales rose from 166 to 314, but the number of 75 to 79 year olds doubled too, from 56 to 112. The people who need reaching are whoever is new, at any age.
Now think about who is being asked to do the reaching. Mountain rescue is run by volunteers. In 2024, 3,000 of them gave 167,411 unpaid hours in England and Wales alone. Asking the same people to out-post the internet as well is a big ask.
Meanwhile, those of us who teach this for a living hold exactly the knowledge they’re trying to get across. Most of us are nowhere near where new walkers are looking.
That’s the gap. Rescue teams have asked the question out loud, and we’re well placed to help answer it.
Where Do New Walkers Learn Now, and What Gets Left Out?
Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, whose patch includes Crib Goch, described the change well in September 2026. “The mountains have not suddenly become more dangerous,” they said. “More people are visiting them, and the way routes are discovered and accessed has changed.”
Mike Park, chief executive of MREW, told the Guardian in April 2025 about “a tendency to follow popular routes online without knowing the hazards and context”.
Context is the word I’d underline. None of this is an argument against people sharing walks online. Enthusiasm gets people outdoors, and that’s a good thing.
The trouble is that the stuff which keeps you safe rarely makes the clip.
| What the clip shows | What it can’t show | What a professional can add |
|---|---|---|
| The ridge on a clear day | The same ridge in cloud, rain or strong wind | How to read a mountain forecast, and when not to go |
| How long it took them | How long it will take you | Naismith’s Rule and a turnaround time |
| The way up | The way off if it goes wrong | Escape routes, planned before the day |
| A path you can see | Where you are when the path disappears | Knowing your position, and how to give it to 999 |
| A great day out | The group that turned back | Why turning round is a skill, not a failure |
We’ve written the walker’s side of this as five checks for any route you’ve found online. It’s a good one to pass on.
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Five Things Outdoor Professionals Can Do
Right, the practical bit. None of these need a budget, and all of them put mountain safety education somewhere it currently isn’t.
1. Show Up Where People Actually Look
If new walkers learn on TikTok and Instagram, that’s where the useful stuff needs to be. Short, plain, free, and not a sales pitch in disguise.
It doesn’t need to be polished. Thirty seconds of you checking a mountain forecast before a walk will reach more of the right people than a brilliant article sitting on a website they never visit.
2. Teach the Decision, Not the Summit
Poor decision making is the factor rescue teams recorded most in 2025. So the most valuable thing we can share is how we make calls, not where we went.
That means the unglamorous habits. Setting a turnaround time before you leave. Checking a mountain forecast rather than a town one. Knowing your way off before you need it. Telling someone at home your plan and when to raise the alarm.
3. Make Turning Back Normal
The Lake District rescue association’s advice includes a line every one of us should be repeating. “It is no disgrace to turn back if you are not certain.”
Summit photos are everywhere. The day you turned round is much rarer online, and it’s the most useful thing we have to share.
If you’ve ever turned a group round in cloud or called a day off at the car park, that story is worth more to a new walker than any view from the top.
4. Give the Basics Away
The knowledge that prevents an avoidable call-out shouldn’t sit behind a paywall. How to tell someone your plan. How to find and give your location. How to register your phone so you can text 999 if you can’t make a call. How to keep enough battery for the call that matters.
Keep the paid courses for depth. Give the safety net away.
It’s the same reason our grid reference practice tool is free, with no sign-up. Being able to tell a rescue team exactly where you are is not a skill anyone should have to pay to practise. The grid reference finder sits beside it for the day it’s needed for real: press a button and your phone gives you a six-figure grid reference, no app and no sign-up.
The rescue world already has good free material worth sharing. AdventureSmart, the UK outdoor safety campaign, boils preparation down to three questions. Do I have the knowledge and skills for the day? Do I know what the weather will be like? Do I have the right kit?
5. Work With Creators, Don’t Scold Them
The people with the biggest outdoor audiences aren’t the enemy. They’ve got the reach, we’ve got the context, and that’s a partnership waiting to happen.
Offer to add the safety notes to a popular route video. Answer questions in the comments helpfully rather than piling on. If a post is genuinely risky, talk about the route, never the person.
Nobody has ever learned to read a mountain forecast from being mocked in a quote post.
Does Prevention Actually Work?
Honestly, it’s hard to prove. Nobody counts the call-outs that never happened, and the UK has no clean before-and-after test of safety education.
The nearest example I know is from Norway, so treat it as context rather than UK evidence. At Trolltunga there were 42 rescue operations in 2016. A mountain ranger patrol was introduced in 2017, and the official Trolltunga site says that since then “the number of rescue operations has dropped drastically.”
It’s worth being straight about what that shows. The rangers are there in person, making sure walkers are properly dressed and carrying enough food and water, and there are emergency shelters on the route too. That’s a physical scheme on one popular walk, not an online campaign, and nobody can say how much of the drop is down to which part.
What it does show is that people can be reached before the walk rather than rescued during it.
We can’t stand in every car park. But our version of the ranger is the half-minute before someone saves a route, and that’s the moment worth being there for.
What Should We Never Do?
A push for fewer call-outs can do real harm if it’s done carelessly. These are the lines I won’t cross, and I’d ask you not to either.
Never make anyone hesitate to call 999. If you’re in trouble in the hills, call 999 and ask for the police, then mountain rescue. Teams would far rather be called early, while things are still manageable. We’ve explained what actually happens when you call mountain rescue so nobody has to wonder.
Never sneer at people who’ve been rescued. Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation, answering people who want rescued walkers charged, put it better than I can. They said that “everyone needs a hand at some point, regardless of ability or experience.” That includes us.
Don’t turn it into a qualifications contest. A badge doesn’t automatically make someone a good teacher, and plenty of people without one share sound advice. What matters is whether advice comes with its context, and whether the person giving it will stand behind it. The aim is more good information out there, not a fence around who’s allowed to talk.
Don’t claim numbers the records don’t hold. None of the UK rescue services records social media as a cause, so there is no percentage to quote. If rescuers say they’re seeing it, credit them by name. Don’t dress it up as a statistic.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of mountain rescue call-outs are avoidable?
Nobody publishes a single figure, so be wary of anyone who quotes one. What the records do show is that in 2025 Mountain Rescue England and Wales recorded poor decision making or human error 939 times and inexperience 644 times, both more often than weather. The Lake District’s rescue association puts it plainly in its advice to walkers, saying many calls to mountain rescue teams are avoidable.
Is social media causing more mountain rescue call-outs?
There’s no statistic either way, because the UK rescue services don’t record social media as a cause. What there is, is senior rescuers saying what they see. Mike Park, chief executive of Mountain Rescue England and Wales, has spoken about people following popular routes online without knowing the hazards and context. Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team says the way routes are discovered has changed.
Should I think twice before calling mountain rescue?
No. If you’re in trouble in the hills, call 999 and ask for the police, then mountain rescue. When people talk about avoidable call-outs they mean the planning and skills before the day, never delaying a call on the day. Rescue teams would far rather reach you early, while things are still manageable, than late when they’ve got worse.
Do you need a qualification to share hill walking advice online?
No, and it’s the wrong argument to have. Plenty of people without a qualification share sound advice, and a badge on its own doesn’t make anyone a good teacher. What matters is whether the advice comes with the context that keeps people safe, like the forecast, realistic timings and a way off, and whether the person giving it will stand behind it.
How can outdoor instructors reach new walkers?
Go where they already learn. For younger walkers, rescue teams say that means TikTok and Instagram rather than websites or the news. Keep it short, plain and free. Share decisions like turnaround times and forecast checks, post the days you turned back, and work alongside creators with big audiences instead of criticising them.
Quieter Hills Start With the People Who Teach
Here’s my ask. Pick one thing from the list above and do it this month. Post a turn-back story. Film your forecast check. Answer the next nervous question in a walking group properly, without the lecture.
My own contribution is the Digital Safety Net course, and it’s free. Its 16 lessons cover setting your phone up before you go, finding your grid reference on the hill, and when a backup device is worth carrying. If it’s useful to the people you teach, point them at it.
If you teach in the hills, I’d love to hear what’s already working for you. Tell me in the comments below, and pass this on to the instructors and leaders you work with.
