About Us

We are Bolton Mountain Rescue Team.  We are one of the voluntary Mountain Rescue teams covering England and Wales. We provide a vital care to those who need us. We are on call 24/7, 365 days of the year, whatever the weather, and have been since 1968.

Each year we serve the community by responding to around 100 callouts. Our team of around 50 volunteers give their time freely to care for you when you need us and of course there is no charge for our services.

We cover an area of over 800 square kilometres. Our area extends from Darwen in the West Pennine Moors to the north to beyond Manchester Airport in the south, and from Wigan to the west to the centre of Manchester in the east.

Our Team’s skills have developed over more than 50 years allowing us to provide professional search and rescue functions in both rural and urban areas.  Our callouts are diverse: we help walkers, runners, bikers, and climbers, of course. But we also search for members of the public who are missing outside of urban areas, particularly those classed as vulnerable by the police. The Team maintains a technical rope rescue capability enabling us to respond to incidents such as people stuck on cliff faces or within ravines. Perhaps surprisingly, we also maintain a fully-equipped Water Rescue Team that provide help during flooding and other water-related incidents.  Although most of our callouts are in our own extensive Team area, we sometimes respond to requests from elsewhere in the country. For example, we receive calls for assistance from our neighbouring mountain rescue teams or even further afield.

Often our casualties need help but are out of reach of the other emergency services. For this reason it is vital that we maintain a high level of pre-hospital medical skills which we call casualty care skills. Our medical training goes well beyond basic first aid and includes the delivery of, for example, life-saving drugs and treatments. Those qualified as mountain rescue casualty carers must sit national practical and theory examinations every three years.

It costs over £50,000 per year to run the Team. Securing this amount of money each year is a constant challenge. We rely on the generosity of the public and other organisations who provide us with donations and undertake a significant fundraising programme, led by our Support Group members. Besides the essential financial support provided to us by our community, the most vital resource the Team draws upon is the time its members give free of charge for attending incidents, training, fundraising, maintenance, and a host of other activities.