Tragic end to massive Mweelrea search

TRAGEDY?The last fatality on Mweelrea Mountain was in 2009.?Pic: Conor McKeown

Tragic end to massive Mweelrea search


Neill O’Neill

ONE of the largest volunteer-led search and rescue operations ever undertaken in Ireland came to a tragic end on Saturday last, when the body of Geoffrey Rowden was found in a boulder field on Mweelrea Mountain in the Doolough Valley.
Mr Rowden had been reported missing on Wednesday having failed to make contact with his family in Dublin. He had set out just before noon the previous day on a well-planned excursion on Connacht’s highest mountain, and had planned to camp in the Doolough Valley at its base upon completing his descent.
The 38-year-old father of a two-year-old girl never made it off the mountain alive. The last anybody had heard from him was when he contacted his wife on Tuesday to tell her his route. Rescuers who discovered his remains said he had suffered injuries consistent with a significant fall, and would have died very suddenly.

Massive operation
While the communities of nearby towns and the rest of the county went about their daily routines last week, unbeknownst to many, one of the biggest search operations ever undertaken in Ireland had been prompted on Wednesday afternoon. By Saturday morning, that operation involved 110 mountain rescue volunteers from Ireland and the UK, backed up by gardaí, Coast Guard volunteers from Cleggan and Westport, the Civil Defence, specialist mountain rescue dogs, a cadaver dog unit from An Garda SíochΡna, the Coast Guard helicopter and the Irish Air Corps.
In total, over 1,100 volunteer hours were spent on Mweelrea between Wednesday evening when the alarm was raised, and Saturday morning, when Mr Rowden’s body was discovered by one of the Mayo teams involved in the search. The colossal effort equates to over six months of regular 40-hour working weeks, all of which was undertaken voluntarily, and at a time when Government funding for organisations such as Mayo Mountain Rescue has been cut by as much as 40 percent.
Every Mountain Rescue Organisation in Ireland was represented and involved in last week’s effort, as well as others from Northern Ireland and even from Yorkshire in the UK, who joined the other teams on Saturday morning and participated in the recovery operation. Mweelrea covers a vast area of land and is not a singular peak, which meant that Mr Rowden could have been anywhere in an area covering many miles.
The unprecedented and complex operation was coordinated and led by Mayo Mountain Rescue Team in conjunction with Mountain Rescue Ireland, and saw Mweelrea split into 15 zones, with search teams assigned to each zone, having been briefed each morning at 7.30am.
A radio network had to be established around the isolated mountain, where there is no mobile phone coverage. The logistics of transporting teams to different areas and back to base was undertaken by the Civil Defence. The Coast Guard ground units searched the lakes and waterways in the areas, while attempts to triangulate Mr Rowden’s position by using his mobile phone proved futile. An air search was carried out by the Sligo-based Coast Guard helicopter, but this proved difficult and ultimately had to be suspended due to high winds.
In a highly unusual move, the Irish Air Corps flew a team of civilian search volunteers from Waterford to Castlebar, landing on the helipad at Mayo General Hospital. They were then brought to Mweelrea by the Civil Defence. Several of the casualty’s family members, friends and colleagues from his local hillwalking club also travelled to the area, and some of them participated in the search.

Community togetherness
Mweelrea is an enormous mountain, stretching from Killary to Doolough and around to Thallabawn. According to Mayo Mountain Rescue Team Leader, Mary Walsh, the showing of community togetherness and support made the lengthy operation easier to deal with and provided some solace in a difficult situation.
She spoke of how local people showed up in the mornings with enormous vats of home-cooked porridge for the volunteers, and again with soup and food throughout each day. Delphi Adventure Centre was ‘fantastic’, providing them with a room in which to locate their command centre and offering food, accommodation and the use of its kitchen for volunteers, along with a landline phone, as there is no mobile coverage in the area.
Portfinn Lodge in Leenane, Hotel Westport and The Castlecourt Hotel in Westport, Hudson’s Pantry in Louisburgh and Delphi Lodge all also offered assistance and sustenance to keep the massive search on-going.
“It was the largest-multi-agency, longest and most-difficult rescue we have ever coordinated,” Mary told The Mayo News, “and we would like to thank everybody who played their part last week in making the search work so smoothly. It was heartening to see the genuine concern of the local community and many of the volunteers were overwhelmed with the kindness shown to them, as were Mr Rowden’s family.”

Tragedy
It is not known how Mr Rowden came to fall from his route, known as ‘The Ramp’. This is a recognised walking trail that leads into the mountain’s more inaccessible north side. He was about one hour away from his car when he fell. It is not known if he was on his ascent or descent when this happened, but while Mr Rowden had researched the mountain and was sufficiently experienced to have been where he was, Mweelrea does not have paths marked out like other easier mountains, such as Croagh Patrick. The Ramp is about the width of Bridge Street in Westport, with a drop off to one side.
The last fatality on Mweelrea occurred in June 2009, when Mayo Mountain Rescue Team recovered the body of Margaret Sweeney (50) who had gotten into difficulty whilst walking on the mountain.