Four walkers were rescued after spending 17 hours on the fells in atrocious weather in Langdale at the weekend.

While the eyes of the world’s media were on events unfolding in neighbouring Borrowdale, the Langdale-Ambleside team was alerted to the group of friends who failed to return from a walk on Saturday evening.

The walkers had set off for a walk at Oxendale in Great Langdale, but were stranded after one of the party managed to cross a swollen beck but the other three were unable to follow.

A spokesman for the mountain rescue team said: “They had only gone for a ’short walk’ because of the weather!

“They had no torches, so had to stop moving once it went dark. They were eventually located at 3.15am by Kendal MRT members who had come to assist after we had been out in atrocious conditions for four hours.”

As has been widely reported, the weather in the Lake District was some of the worst for over 40 years, with 90mph winds and torrential rain.

The rescuers then faced difficulties getting back to their base because of the large number of abandoned cars in the flooded valley.