A MOUNTAIN rescue team is searching for new recruits after seeing its services tested by one of the most severe winters in 30 years.

The Rossendale and Pendle team is looking for volunteers in the hope of increasing its ranks following a rise in the number of call-outs.

Several climbers have died across the country after being drawn into the mountains by perfect snow conditions.

But dozens of lives have also been saved by teams - including those around Greater Manchester - whose members have helped stranded ambulance crews and search for vulnerable people in icy weather.

The Rossendale and Pendle team is looking for a new batch of trainees to start in April.

Team leader Andy Simpson, spokesman for Mountain Rescue England and Wales, said: "Like everyone else, team members' lives are busier with work and family commitments so the amount of time they can devote to mountain rescue reduces accordingly.

Read about M.E.N reporter Dean Kirby training to join Rossendale and Pendle mountain rescue team below

"We need to increase the pool of members so that we can get the appropriate numbers of skilled rescuers to do the job."

All of the 56 Mountain Rescue teams in England and Wales are funded by private donations. They face annual running costs of up to £80,000.

Bolton South MP Brian Iddon last month led the first parliamentary debate on Mountain Rescue to discuss the possibility of government funding.

Mountain Rescue celebrated its 75th anniversary last year. Teams in England and Wales receive no central funding, unlike their colleagues in Scotland who receive £300,000 a year from the Scottish Parliament, split between the 25 or so teams.

Earlier this month a climber from Oldham died after he fell 300ft in the Lake District.

A climber from Manchester plunged 370ft on Snowdon, but managed to cling to a ledge and used his torch to signal a rescue helicopter.

Rossendale and Pendle was one of three local teams which helped ambulance crews cope as temperatures plummeted earlier this month.

The team is based in Haslingden and has a 350sq mile operational area. It handles about 50 to 80 calls a year.

Like all rescue teams, its members are volunteers and come from all walks of life.

It can take up to a year before trainees become operational and allowed to go on call-outs, plus a further two years to become fully operational.

Mr Simpson said: "Those who apply should already be keen hill walkers, climbers or mountaineers. They should already have a basic knowledge of mountain craft and the necessary equipment.

"But they must be willing to learn new skills and, above all, must be good team players."

For more information and an application form visit: rpmrt.org.uk.

MEN reporter Dean Kirby is training to join Rossendale and Pendle mountain rescue team. After 12 months training he has passed an assessment to become an 'operational trainee' to take part in rescues. It could take two years for him to qualify as a full team member.

Here he describes what training was like:

THE ice crunches beneath our crampons and our axes plunge deep into the snow.

We are moving towards a rock turret called Sergeant Man, which stands at 2,360ft above Langdale valley in the Lake District.

The mountains all around us look majestic in their winter coats.

But there is danger here too - and we are being very careful. Every step is weighed with caution.

We have been training to become mountain rescuers for 12 months and this is our assessment day.

The claws on my crampons crack the ice again with reassuring force. We are going up.

It has been a winter like few others for mountaineers and headline writers alike. Snow conditions more akin to the Scottish Highlands have brought scores of climbers into the mountains of England and Wales.

Already this winter has claimed five lives in Lakeland and Snowdonia, including two in the gullies near where we are today.

The Langdale and Ambleside rescue team has been inundated with calls for help.

Up on the ridge, we are hoping to follow the footsteps of a long line of rescue volunteers stretching back three-quarters of a century.

Mountain rescue has its origins in Manchester. It began when a group of surgeons at Manchester Royal Infirmary set up a committee to raise funds for equipment boxes and drugs to aid rescues following a series of nasty accidents.

The first team was established in 1947, bringing more structure to rescues that had previously been carried out by climbers' friends using anything they could find for a stretcher, typically a five-bar-gate.

Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team was set up after two young brothers died on the Lancashire moors in 1962.

It led to demands for search and rescue services in Lancashire similar to those in the Lake District.

Pendle Hill, the highest peak in the team's 350 square mile operational area, may be 169ft short of a mountain. But the moors can be as grim - and dangerous - as anywhere on a foggy night.

Bread-and-butter work involves searching for missing vulnerable people on the fringes of Bury, Rochdale and the towns of east Lancashire, as well as helping people in the outdoors.

It involved helping walkers with relatively minor injuries to serious accidents involving hang gliders, off-road bikers, aircraft, hot air balloons and falls from height.

Volunteers go out in any weather - providing rescue cover at fell races, rescuing motorists from snow drifts and helping fire crews tackle moorland fires.

They also help the police recover bodies and work closely with ambulance crews to reach casualties in places where access is difficult.

I enquired about joining a year ago after a story appeared in the Manchester Evening News saying that local teams were facing a recruitment crisis.

Our training has included weekly sessions in first aid, navigation, radios, search tactics, working with dogs, stretcher handling, crag safety and more first aid.

We have practised the use of all manner of kit including stretchers, oxygen bottles, pulleys and splints.

There was a search through undergrowth so thick that I doubted such a place could have existed in Lancashire.

We have done night navigation exercises on Scout Moor, have spent a night at an ambulance station on snow patrol and have also completed a foundation course in rescue techniques.

Last summer we travelled to an RAF base on Anglesey to practise being winched in and out of a rescue helicopter in glorious sunshine.

The radio crackles into life as we reach the rock turret and we give the team leader a grid reference of our position. Snow covers the ground as far as the eye can see.

I pull my hat down tighter. It's time to start heading back.

If we pass today we will soon be given pagers and join the team on call-outs in Lancashire and Greater Manchester.

We walk out down a deep valley carved by a glacier 10,000 years ago. The mountain to our left hides a stone-age axe factory.

The day draws to a close as we gather at an inn at the foot of the valley for a briefing.

Snow has begun falling outside and the temperature starts to dip towards zero, with darkness looming.

Laughter brings relief and marks the end of another successful day.

Then there is a sudden flurry of activity. Decisions are made quickly and 10 team members prepare to leave the warmth of the pub to go back up the mountain.

Two lads are up there somewhere - lost in a whiteout.

I head back to Manchester through the snow with the other trainees. Our crampons are back in our rucksacks, the ice on them already starting to melt.

Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team is looking for new trainees to start in April.

For more information and an application form visit: rpmrt.org.uk .

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