legends · 4 min read ·
Callout Log, Carn Dubh
A mountain rescue callout log traces a walker on a summit that has acquired a second summit.
**Glenmoor Mountain Rescue · Callout Log · Callout 26/118**
**Incident:** Reported overdue walker, Carn Dubh summit route · **Raised by:** Phone call, 18:40, 24 Oct
**Caller:** Daughter of walker, Andrew Lowry, 61 · **Last known contact:** text at 09:12, "at the summit, all fine, back by 3"
· · ·
**18:52** Team alerted (6 members). Route briefed. Summit route: 4 km, ascent 780 m. Weather: light rain, cloud base 500 m, visibility poor.
**19:20** Team at trailhead. Lowry's car located in car park: locked, contents intact, no sign of walker.
**19:48** First team in cloud at 620 m. Visibility 30 m. Calling by name. No response.
**20:15** Second team reports a voice on the upper path, calling "Hello?" Assumed to be the walker. Team moved toward voice. Voice moved away. Team called again. Voice responded, from the summit: "I'm up here. Come up when you're ready."
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**Rescue team debrief (Glenmoor, 25 Oct, 04:00)**
Team reached the summit at 22:40. There was nobody there. The trig point was intact. The summit shelter had been used recently. There was a flask on the bench, still warm, and two cups, and a folded map with the route marked in pencil, all the way from the car park to the top, in a neat, careful line.
Team leader Rob Dunning asked the team to split up and search the shelter, the cairn, and the lower path. Team member Ellie Crane reported finding a pair of boots placed side by side on the summit flagstone, laces tied, toes pointing toward the descent. The boots were wet. There were no footprints around them.
· · ·
**Callout update (20:40)**
Caller (daughter, Sarah Lowry) telephoned again. She says her father has texted again. The message reads: *Still up here. Can't find my way down. The path keeps changing. Please don't leave me alone in the cloud.*
Sarah says the phone number is her father's, but the message was sent at 20:31, from her father's phone, which she has in her hand, switched off, in her kitchen.
· · ·
**Walker's diary (Andrew Lowry, found in the summit shelter, 25 Oct, transcribed)**
*24 Oct, 09:00. Setting off. Sarah thinks I'm daft going up on my own. Told her I've been coming up this hill since 1980 and I know every stone. Took the map anyway, out of habit.*
*24 Oct, 10:30. At the summit. The shelter's been swept clean. There's a bench, a flask, and a folded map on it, already marked. The route's been drawn for me. I've not drawn it. The pencil line is in a hand I'd know anywhere. It's my mother's.*
*24 Oct, 11:00. Sat down to have my sandwich. Mother's been dead thirty years. The cloud came down. Now I can't see the path.*
*24 Oct, 16:00. There's a figure at the edge of the cloud, below the summit. It's been standing there since lunch. It has a torch. It's calling my name. I know the voice. I haven't heard it since I was seven.*
*24 Oct, 20:00. Torch has gone out. Figure is still there. It says it's been waiting at the cairn for the last one to come up. I said I'd come down. It said, "Not yet. Finish your sandwich first."*
· · ·
**Rescue team report (Glenmoor, 26 Oct)**
Callout 26/118 remains open. Walker Andrew Lowry has not been found. Team has searched the summit route on three occasions. The route is now recorded as twelve kilometres long, with a second summit appearing on the map at the point where the original route turned. The map shows the trig point at the second summit.
Team members report hearing a voice in the cloud, calling the walker's name, in an older woman's voice, saying: *Come on, love. The path's clearer than you think.*
· · ·
**Final callout entry (Glenmoor, 27 Oct, 23:58)**
Walker located: Andrew Lowry, alive, on the summit route, at the trig point. He is dressed in full kit, with a torch and a flask, and a folded map in his hand.
*He told the team leader he'd been sitting with his mother, who had walked the route with him as a boy and then never come back down. She had finally found her way up to the top. She'd asked him to stay a while and finish the sandwich.*
*Andrew Lowry was discharged from hospital on 29 Oct with mild hypothermia. He has asked the team not to refer to the second summit. The callout is closed as walker located, returned home.*