What is going WRONG at Striding Edge?

striding Edge the notoriously iconic Ridge Line running east to west in the heart of the English Lake District both beautiful and deadly it has gifted many a good memory and photo opportunity but as with all good things the bad doesn't stray far behind [Music] now what is going on at strident Edge I hear you asking well that is what I'm telling a story about one Infamous Ridgeline in the picturesque backdrop of the Lake District with almost 16 million visitors each year the Lake District is the most visited national park in the UK form 2 the 214 wainwrights one of which is the subject of today's story Hill villain the third highest in its rankings at 3118 foot it is estimated that around 100 000 people Summit Hill villain every year starting from the East at the Village of glenridden or to the west from thirlmere the most popular route is coming from glenridden as it takes The Thrill Seekers across the famous Australian Edge now why do I feel it necessary to make a dedicated video on strident Edge in 2022 well in the past two years things appear to be going downhill and by that I mean people are for lack of a better um going downhill [Music] now for a bit of context in 2019 and 2020 combined there were a total of five incidents that Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team were called out to on strident Edge but in 2021 and 2022 there were a total of 17 so far and we aren't even at the end of this year yet I know what you're all thinking 2019 2020 the UK was in lockdown and as a result no one was going out that is definitely a factor in these stats but if you look at a random grouping of years such as 2014 to 2017 there were only 11 incidents logged in that four-year period this makes the past two years the highest incident call out rate at strident Edge in almost 10 years [Music] so we're three minutes in to today's video and I've watched those three minutes back a bunch of times and I feel like there's something missing from the progression the story that I'm trying to tell today I don't think I can tell this story from the comfort of my own home so I've came out Glenn ridden behind me so on this Saturday I've come out and I'm gonna go tell the rest of this story from stride and Edge itself we're going to go to what is known as the bad step and we're going to go over the dangers and why you need to respect the bad step now I'm not going to take you through the entire hike I'm going to put together a few clips and just tell you a story about why I'm actually making this video today because after speaking to friends and family I just feel like I need to get this off my chest get this video done and made so it's out there for people to see but yeah I'm gonna head up there and I'll tell you the story The reason why I feel it important to do this video so yeah come on let's go guys [Music] about two years ago I uploaded a video on five reasons why I don't think Stratton Edge is dangerous I made that video because I wanted to motivate and Inspire others that might have been sitting on the fence about giving stride and Edge a go one day and for the most part it done just that I would get a steady flow of comments from people celebrating finally achieving crossing the edge however I started noticing a trend in the comments of the video going from positive to negative I can deal with negative comments were on the internet it comes with the territory but what I started to find difficult was reading comments from people that have lost a friend or a family member to striding Edge they were never aggressive or argumentative but they just offered thoughts from their perspective after going through the pain of losing someone to the edge then I started to look at the actual statistics because it was getting increasingly common that I would hear about another fall at the edge so I decided to take a look at the the Patterdale Mountain Rescue website which is where I got the stats for the start of this video they log every incident they go out to and explain in detail what happened and how much resource was used to save a person or sadly do a body recovery it might sound a bit Daft but I started to feel a responsibility because I put something out there for people to watch but didn't include any sort of warnings or continue with caution so that is why I'm making this video so that I have this out there not to deter people but to make others aware of what the bad step actually is because I certainly wasn't aware of it the first time I went up strident Edge foreign yeah there's a big one here foreign [Music] so this right here this Little Chute uh yeah this is the bad step now you've seen some clips of people walking down the bud step here and they chose to not actually come down this path which is definitely advisable when coming down the bad stuff there's there's two ways there's this way which is the more technical route and on the other side is a slightly more gradient way a bit shallower not as steep but still quite technical but it's it's this site that causes so many problems now when you're on top of the bad step especially if you're in a group it doesn't really matter what age you are if you're being egged on to or you're following someone that is capable and confident of coming down this bad step then you're likely to follow them but you shouldn't if you don't feel comfortable at least that would be my advice this is Reese this is where recently someone fell off fell off this part here and fell straight down I think it was like a 40 meter fall not nice but it seems to be happening more frequently I've only been down the bad step once and I've been here seven times now I always go down the other side because I've done it once and I don't think it's worth it anymore so even today I didn't come down this bit I went down the other side and the other groups that you've seen also went down the other side if you come do strident edge of course every part of it is potentially a bad step but this is a difficult part of striding edge you should navigate it with caution and if a friend goes down it that is capable you don't have to follow them just because if they're leading the pack you certainly don't have to follow them go whatever you are comfortable with go with whichever way you're comfortable with doing I recently went up sharp edge with m in a video where I went up sharp edge and got hit with vertigo and she felt pressure to go up there with me and do the do complete the video that's not what it's all about it's about being safe and knowing your limits and it's takes a lot of courage to turn around so all the times I've been here I've seen people turn around and they are always devastated when they have to turn around it's not a debate it's not a defeating anywhere see it as a little win for yourself if you make it so far along something that you know you're going to find challenging the fact that you're up there trying it is a win on its own ah what a heavy topic for such a beautiful place I've never really done a video that purpose is to look at the negative of something and I love the Lake District so this is a complete one-off for me if you have been a pel villain across strident Edge let me know how you found this particular section if you hear of a family member going to tackle it for their first time maybe just link them this video just to give them a heads up of what to really expect anyway that's it from me signing off from Hell villain pace

Channel: jack a snacks

Views: 332,620

Keywords: striding edge, helvellyn, striding edge deaths, fell from striding edge, lake district helvellyn, most dangerous mountain, documentary, Lake District, Lake District death

Id: u-ULeQTQwWE

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 19 2022