Lost hiker forced to spend two nights exposed in Cairngorms

A LOST hiker survived two nights in the Cairngorms while a helicopter and mountain rescue teams searched for him.

David Wightman spent an exhausting weekend alone and exposed to the elements after becoming separated from his walking companion, Colin Marshall.

When Mr Marshall managed to raise the alarm, a major search and rescue operation was launched.

Mr Wightman, 62, was eventually found by students who shared their food with him before he was airlifted to safety.

He said: “I just have a huge debt to all of these people. It’s been quite a humbling experience.”

The pair were walking in the Ben Macdui area, heading to Corrour bothy, when they lost one another in poor weather last Friday.

“I lost visibility,” Mr Wightman, from near Southend-on-sea in Essex, said. “My mistake at that point was not shouting or whistling, in the certainty in my mind that I knew which way he’d gone.

“It’s the most stupid mistake to make, of course. From that point onwards we were both on our own.”

He eventually decided to find somewhere to keep warm and shelter from the wind.

“I had some very good luck that the average temperature for October for the Cairngorms was up”, he said. “I had waterproof clothing on and my bag was serving as a reasonable windbreak on a slab of granite that I found.

“I was able to get through 12 hours of darkness and stay reasonably warm. There were some quite severe shivering fits in the middle of the night. I kept my head torch on in case there was anything coming out to look, but [there was] no sign of any search that night.

“Not knowing what the situation was with my friend I could only keep my fingers crossed he actually got to shelter. I now know that he did do that.”

When Mr Marshall raised the alarm, Braemar, Cairngorm and Aberdeen mountain rescue teams were called out, alongside police and search and rescue dogs. Mr Wightman described the following day – Saturday – as a “total disaster”.

He recalled: “When I powered on my phone it told me I only had 15 per cent left. The phone died, and the charger didn’t work because moisture had got in it.”

He made it to the valley floor of the River Dee but faced another night in the open.

At one point, he spotted the helicopter and its searchlights. He waved his poles and got his bright orange cover out, but he was not spotted.

“I know now, and this would have saved me an awful lot of heartache and grief, that if you have a torch, even in the daylight, shine it,” he said.

“Having waved goodbye to the helicopter – that for me was the lowest point of the whole experience – I then saw in the distance some granite boulders. I tucked myself in as best as possible for another 12 hours.”

The following morning, when he made it to the meeting point of two valleys, he was exhausted and his morale low.

But then he heard voices from the opposite side of the river, shouting: “Are you David Wightman?”

They were four students from Aberdeen University who had heard that search teams were looking for him.

“From that point the relief was just enormous – I knew this was going to be okay”, he said.

“They shared their food, peanut butter out the jar – stick your hand in, don’t worry”, Mr Wightman said. “It’s the kindness of strangers, it just restored my faith in human nature.”

They used a piece of silver foil to attract the attention of the helicopter searching overhead.

He was flown off the hill, and reunited with Mr Marshall, and then his family.

Asked if he would one day return to the Cairngorms, Mr Wightman said: “I love the environment so I could be tempted, for sure. There are things I would do differently, given what has happened but it’s a wonderful part of the world.”

There were some quite severe shivering fits in the middle of the night