Honeypot locations featured on social media and low-quality navigation apps are likely to be responsible for record numbers of mountain rescue services, including a massive increase in young people who need to be saved, the analysis reveals.
The Mountain Rescue team in England and Wales was called out every day in 2024. Scotland’s callouts exceeded 1,000 for the first time.
Rescue increased by 24% between 2019 and 2024, according to data analyzed by the Datased Odernance Survey of Mountain Rescue England and Wales and shared only with the Guardian. This rise was the toughest among the 18-24-year-old group, with rescue nearly doubled from 166 to 314.
Mountain Rescue has increased the popularity of “Honeypot” locations (beauty spots and photogenic locations) that are popular on Tiktok and Instagram.
Mike Park, the chief executive of Mountain Rescue in England and Wales, said it’s difficult to give a “decisive reason” for the increase in rescues among young people who took the top spot from the 50-54-year-old group, who fell slightly to 165 in 2019 from 170 rescues to 170 in 2024.
“But from incident reports, we know that more and more people are being seduced by Instagram posts to dangerous places and that the navigation apps used aren’t always suitable for outdoor environments,” Park said. “Additionally, they tend to follow popular online routes without knowing the dangers or context. It’s no surprise that people who are most likely to rely on their mobile phones are getting more difficult.”
Young people were responsible for most call-outs, but age groups were not immune. The age group of 40-44 is the second most troublesome adult, with 196 callouts last year. Rescues for people aged 75-79 have also doubled, but doubling from small bases ranging from 56-112. Data also included rescues of 93 people from age 75 to age 80 and over in 2019.
The Lake District and peak district, Eliri (Snowdonia), was the busiest place, followed by other national parks. There were also high call-out locations in South Wales, Northumberland and Cornwall, the Alternance Research stated.
Individual data released by the Rescue of Mountain Scotland on Tuesday found that the team released 1,000 records in 2024. There were 740 and 17 animals rescued by a civilian mountain rescue team of 25 people, three police Scotland mountain rescue teams and one RAF mountain rescue team.
The fact that teams were called out daily in England and Wales was nothing more than a “part of the story,” Park said. “The busiest teams often carry out multiple callouts in parallel with all the requests they make on unpaid volunteers, employers, friends and family,” he said.
The Lake District Mountain Rescue team, which had some of the busiest places, told the Guardian in February that they feared that the number of callouts has not increased as demand for volunteers is increasing.
According to Ordnance Survey, its app data said it was the busiest day of 2024 walking, cycling and jogging. Leisure Managing Director Nick Giles said the lack of preparation “can turn an upsetting experience that ruined a great day.”
Giles encourages anyone planning to head to a remote area to have an OS map app and paper maps in place, “guaranteeing a great adventure without getting stuck or lost.”
