Simonside Walking Safety: What Mountain Rescue's Summer Callouts Teach Us
Northumberland's mountain rescue team published its summer callout reports on 19 August. Read properly, they are the best free navigation lesson you will get this year.
Simonside is one of the friendliest hills in Northumberland.
It is 429 metres, two miles south of Rothbury, with a flagstone path across the moor and a car park at the bottom. Thousands of people walk it every year without incident.
Which is exactly why the callout reports are worth reading.
Local tip: The flagged path over Simonside is easy to follow. The ground either side of it is deep heather, peat hags and sandstone crag. The moment you step off the flags in poor visibility, you are on a completely different hill.
What Actually Happened in the Simonside Hills
At 00:19 on 16 July, Northumbria Police called out Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team alongside North of Tyne MRT.
Two young people had become disorientated while out walking on the Hepple Whitefield estate, on the northern side of the Simonside ridge.
Then it got more complicated. A family member drove in to reach them and became stranded on a rough estate track.
The duty controllers had very little to go on. They worked with the police to establish an accurate location before deploying anyone - which is standard practice, and the reason a callout does not always mean an instant response.
Six team members went onto the hill on foot. Both were located about an hour in, cold but uninjured, given warm jackets and escorted off the difficult ground.
The whole thing took two hours and fifteen minutes of volunteer time.
Lesson One: Being Findable Beats Being Found
Three of the eight reports turn on one thing - whether the team could work out where somebody was.
On 9 July, a walker was taken ill on the Wall above Peel Crag, near Sycamore Gap. Contact was lost. The ambulance service sent a PhoneFind location request to the casualty's mobile.
Here is the detail worth pinning to your fridge. In the team's own words:
Initially this was unsuccessful as the phone's location settings prevented a fix, however a location was later established.
The technology was ready. The phone's settings were not.
Open your phone's location settings and check that location services are on and that emergency location sharing is enabled. It takes thirty seconds and it is the single most useful thing in this article.
While you are there, register for Emergency SMS - it lets you text 999 when you have too little signal for a call.
Lesson Two: A Grid Reference Still Beats an App
On 29 June, the team was called to an injured quad bike rider on remote farmland near Langley.
The what3words reference supplied put the incident around two kilometres from the actual location, and on the opposite side of the River Allen. A follow-up attempt to get a position using SARLOC also failed.
What solved it? The ambulance service passing on the correct farm name.
We are not anti-what3words. It is genuinely useful and it has helped in plenty of rescues. But one wrong word in a three-word address does not give you a near-miss - it gives you a location in a different county.
The habit worth building is redundancy. If you can give a six-figure grid reference and a what3words address and the name of the nearest farm, road or obvious feature, the team can cross-check.
If you have never been shown how to read a grid reference off a map, that is a two-hour skill that lasts a lifetime. Our beginner's guide to map and compass skills in Northumberland is the place to start.
Our sister company GPS Training has also written the definitive piece on this: how to give mountain rescue your exact location.
Lesson Three: The Call Can Drop
On 24 July, a 999 call from a member of the public disconnected unexpectedly near Winlaton Mill. No further contact was possible. No condition, no exact location.
Again, a PhoneFind request to the caller's mobile is what unpicked it. Seven team members, one hour seventeen.
The practical takeaway is unglamorous:
- Tell somebody your route and your expected finish time before you go
- Carry a power bank, or set your phone to low power mode at the trailhead
- If you make a 999 call, give your location first, before anything else, in case the line goes
- Stay put once you have been told to. Moving makes you harder to find
Lesson Four: These Are Volunteers
Every person in every one of those eight reports was an unpaid volunteer.
Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team covers the whole Northumbria Police area - all of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, roughly 5,000 square kilometres - twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.
Last year the team spent 290 days directly involved in operational search and rescue, on top of 8,288 volunteer hours of training, maintenance, governance and fundraising.
They are a registered charity, number 1189987, and a holder of The King's Award for Voluntary Service.
They will never make you feel foolish for calling. But they will quietly appreciate you making yourself easy to find.
So, Should You Still Walk Simonside?
Absolutely. Go this autumn - the heather is at its best and the light off the crags in the late afternoon is worth the walk on its own.
Just go with three things sorted:
- A map, and the ability to use it. OS Explorer OL42 covers Simonside and the Cheviots
- A head torch. Days are getting shorter fast now
- Somebody who knows where you are and when to expect you back
🥾 Good to know: Simonside sits just south of the Coquet valley, the same landscape our Northern Pennine Way, Cheviot Hills Challenge Walk crosses on Saturday 26 September. If you are training for it, Simonside is an ideal weekend outing.
How to Call Mountain Rescue
Dial 999 or 112, ask for Police, then ask for Mountain Rescue.
Before you call, gather:
- Your location, ideally a grid reference
- Name, gender and age of the casualty
- Nature of the injury or problem
- Number of people in your party
- A mobile number they can call back on
Then stay where you are, get warm, and wait to be contacted.
Frequently Asked Questions
How high is Simonside?
Simonside itself is 429 metres, or 1,407 feet. The highest point of the wider Simonside Hills is Tosson Hill at 440 metres. It is two miles south of Rothbury, inside Northumberland National Park.
Is Simonside a hard walk?
No. The main route from the Forestry England car park is a well-made path with flagstones across the boggy sections, and most reasonably fit walkers manage it comfortably. The difficulty is not the gradient, it is the navigation once you leave the marked path or the cloud comes down.
Do I need a map if there is a path?
Yes. Paths disappear in mist, and the ground either side of the flags is deep heather and peat. A map and compass work when your phone battery does not.
What is PhoneFind?
It is a system used by UK search and rescue teams. They text you a link, you open it in your phone's browser, and it sends your GPS position back to the rescue team. It needs no app - but it does need your phone's location settings to be switched on.
Is what3words reliable for mountain rescue?
It is widely used and often helpful, but it is not foolproof, as the Allen Banks callout shows. Treat it as one of several ways to describe where you are, not the only one.
How do I support the mountain rescue team?
Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team is a registered charity funded by donations. Their website has details of how to give. Several walkers on our challenge walks fundraise for them each year.
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