A person who was one in every of three hikers who died collectively strolling the Aonach Eagach ridge in Glen Coe final weekend has been named by his household as Graham Cox.
A spokesperson for the household described the 60-year-old as “a much-loved husband, father, son and brother … He is remembered by all as the kindest, loveliest man. The family is devastated by his loss and request privacy at this time.”
Cox died alongside a 64-year-old girl and a 39-year-old man, who is known to have been their information. They haven’t but been named on the request of their households.
Their our bodies have been recovered on Sunday in a difficult operation involving teams of volunteers from the Glencoe mountain rescue group together with the Inverness coastguard search and rescue helicopter, after the trio have been reported overdue from the ridge on Saturday night time.
Through the week, members of the tight-knit native climbing group described their shock on the tragic accident. One mentioned: “It brings it home because it’s one of our own.”
The information has been described as extremely skilled and excellent at his job.
The three people who died are thought to have fallen whereas roped collectively for a course of referred to as rope scrambling, a typical methodology for traversing the slim and jagged ridge employed with much less skilled hikers.
Crossing Aonach Eagach – which suggests “notched ridge” in Scots Gaelic – can take as much as 9 hours and it climbs to a peak of 1,100 metres (3,608ft). Native guides suggest that hikers method it after some expertise of scrambling – utilizing your palms to maintain steadiness on rocky terrain – and down-climbing – because the prolonged ridge has as many down sections as ups.
The Glencoe mountain rescue group chief, Brian Bathurst, mentioned the tragic accident had had “an impact on the local climbing community, and further afield”.
He instructed BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday that the route was well-liked, which most traversed safely, but it surely included some “steep, exciting scrambles”.
He added: “The weather is changeable and it certainly can be misty and wet. A lot of the rock is also worn away so it is slippery when wet. The ridge does not offer any safe exits so once you are committed you have to either carry on or go back the way you came.”
