TEAM HISTORY:

Prior to the mid-70s search and rescue in the hills was dealt with by a combination of the Police, local volunteers from the Estates and villages and occasionally rescue 'teams' from the south. The Dundonnell MRT covered Ross-Shire and had a loose arrangement for covering Sutherland and Caithness.

These ad-hoc arrangements changed following an incident in 1976 involving a lost estate worker. The subsequent makeshift search involved many locals over a number of days. As a result of this incident a number of interested locals decided to try to set up more robust arrangements for search and rescue in the hills in the North.

A meeting was called by Hugh Adcock, the local policeman, at Bill Ritchie's house and, with the help of copious amounts of Bill's homebrew, the idea of a local MRT based in Assynt took root. Bill Ritchie was elected the first Team Leader and two call-outs followed quite quickly involving incidents at Eas a Chual Aluin and down Glen Bain hole, one of the local caves. These incidents confirmed that local rescue arrangements were a good idea and official police recognition soon followed.

Team leaders following Bill Ritchie have included John Ross, Phil Jones, Steve Heap-O'Neill and currently Willie Marshall who has recently been awarded an MBE for his Services to the Highlands. Since the mid-70s the 'old guard' has consisted of Bill Ritchie, John Ross, Fraser MacKenzie, Alex Scott and George Morrison, all of the Assynt area.

The Caithness contingent joined the team in the mid-80's following a fall in available numbers in the 'west' and the availability of a number of relatively skilled mountaineers in the Caithness Mountaineering and Ski Club. Winter incidents on Ben Hope, Ben Klibreck and Foinaven in the late-80's cemented arrangements across the North.