was found by Hutchinson's party at 2.0am. He had collapsed and was lying in the snow, but he was conscious. Then the second man, seeing the two star reds go up, approached the rescue party under his own steam. He had lost contact with his companion and had been walking in circles until he saw the lights. A rope stretcher was made and the injured man carried on this until the other party arrived from the second corrie, carrying the Duff stretcher. The casualty was transferred and an extremely strenuous haul ensued. The skiers' tent was reached at 4.0am. Here the Glenmore party were met by Kinloss who took over the stretcher and dragged it the rest of the way to the car park.

The injured man was admitted to hospital suffering from shock, exposure and frostbite. In the opinion of the medical authorities the party would have succumbed had they been out on the hills for a few more hours. In fact, probably all would have died had the skiers not been camping in Coire an t-Sneachda.

There was a strong element of chance involved in the last incident, not the least being the fact that two men fell down the Vent of Coire an Lochain without sustaining serious injury. But in the following case the man's survival until he was found may have depended to a great extent on character.

Billy Garland was a novice skier of 33 and on March 2nd, 1962, he was reported missing from his home in Inverness. Enquiries were made and it transpired that he was last seen at 2.0 p.m. the previous day at the head of Coire na Ciste and about a mile north of the summit of Cairngorm.

Kinloss were alerted and, although they didn't start searching until 3.0 p.m., they covered a great deal of ground in the limited amount of daylight that was left. They searched the northern slopes of Cairngorm and the summit, and the lower reaches of Strath Nethy. The only thing that came to light were tracks (of a man on foot, not on skis) heading in a westerly direction (250 degrees magnetic) away from Cairngorm summit. It was thought that these might be the tracks of the missing man carrying his skis, and as a result it was agreed to search the western corries of the mountain and the environs of Loch Avon on the following day. At the same time it was arranged that two instructors from Glenmore Lodge should visit the Shelter Stone at Loch Avon.

On March 3rd large parties of local people and other civilians, police, troops, and the RAF team were on the mountain, while two men, Worral and Thompson, went to Loch Avon. It was the last two who found Garland - at the foot of Coire Raibert and above the loch. He was uninjured and still able to walk without assistance although he had spent two nights and nearly three days Continue to page 20