WALKERS are becoming heavily reliant on new technology when they get lost on the Lake District fells and are neglecting the basic requirements and safety skills, says the leader of the country's busiest mountain rescue team, writes Mike Addison.

Nick Verrall, of the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team, says global positioning systems (GPS) and mobile phones can be more of a hindrance than a help in the hands of hikers who do not know how to navigate.

"We are getting a lot of jobs in these days when in the past people would have sorted themselves out," said Mr Verrall.

"We are having to mother people back down the fell.

People with mobile phones just tend to stop when they get lost.

It's a bit like putting a hood over the head of a rabbit.

You just have to get them moving again and within five or ten minutes they will sort themselves out."

His comments have been picked up on by Stewart Hulse, the president of LAMRT, who claims that 90 per cent of people are taking to the fells with a mobile phone, but less than 50 per cent bother to take a map and compass or even a torch.

"The frustrating part of any non-accident incident is when people use their mobile phone from the fell and they cannot give the team leader any information let alone what part of the Lake District they are in," says Mr Hulse.

But Mr Hulse believes that if walkers invest in a global positioning system it could greatly increase their safety on the fell.

"Just by switching on the GPS the walkers will get a grid reference for their location instantaneously.

" We in mountain rescue accept that there are going to be accidents and people needing assistance for one reason or another, but everything people can do to make themselves aware of their location is obviously a great help to the team."

The LAMRT annual report says that the months of quiet brought on by foot-and-mouth were not wasted by the mountain rescue team.

With no call-outs for the first three-and-a-half months of the year, the team used the time to practice their emergency rescue techniques.

Mr Verrall said those preparations were proven necessary within hours of some of the fells reopening in June.

"They opened at 8am and our first call out was at 11:45.

Despite the

restrictions, it was an average summer for

call-outs, and October was the busiest the team has ever had.

If the fells had been open all year, it would have had a very busy one."