Tonight:
5°c
Couple went up a mountain and came down engaged
Benedict Moore-Bridger13 Jan 2009
A COUPLE stranded on Britain's highest mountain overnight told today how they were rescued after texting a parent 550 miles away.
Stefan Senk, 29, was trapped with girlfriend Beth Davies, 25, for 18 hours more than 2,000 feet up the North face of Ben Nevis in gale force winds as temperatures fell below zero.
The couple, caught out by a challenging climb which left them no time to descend before dark, took shelter at 6pm in a narrow crevice overlooking a 1,000ft drop.
A storm blanked out any mobile phone signal and they had told no one the details of their climb. Fearing it might be their last night together, Mr Senk proposed.
Miss Davies, from Hemel Hempsted, a researcher at Durham University, said: "We got very scared. We were huddled together on a rock face and all I could see was a wall of cloud and fog. The wind was so strong it shredded my blanket and we were close to hypothermia. Stefan turned to me and said something about getting married if we get through this. I said yes immediately."
As dawn broke, Mr Senk used the last power on his phone to text his new fiancée's mother, Norma Speirs, 54, in Guildford. Miss Davies said: "My mother called Lochaber mountain rescue who scrambled an RAF Sea King helicopter.
"The fog deadened our cries for help. I could hear the helicopter coming closer and then moving away. It took a long time to find us but eventually we were winched up. I just felt the panic ebbing away."
Back at their hotel Miss Davies hadn't forgotten Mr Senk's proposal. "I said, 'I suppose you'd better get me a ring then' and he did." She and the IT programmer, plan to marry next year.
She said: "Ben Nevis will always hold a place in my heart. I think we'll climb it again but not as a honeymoon destination."
