Welcome to Bolton Mountain Rescue Team

Think “Mountain Rescue”, and you could be forgiven for not thinking “Bolton”.

Nevertheless we’ve been providing a volunteer search & rescue service, covering an area of over 800 square kilometres since 1968. There are over 150 calls on our service each year.

The 3 new Land Rover vehicles, pictured here as they were collected from Crake International, Cumbria, in April 2011.
BMRT members wade onto Riverside Drive, Prestolee, to evacuate residents trapped in their homes - 26/12/2015
The scene of a search at incident 93/2013, Horden Stoops, near Belmont.
A casualty is carried to the team's LandRover ambulance at Turton & Entwistle reservoir, for onward handover to NWAS.
The team works with the North West Air Ambulance at Rivington, to assist with the evacuation of a collapsed male.
The team finds and then rescues a hillwalker with a fractured knee from Crooked Edge Hill on Wilders Moor.
The team assists motorists during severe snowdrifts in the Bolton area
The team rescues an injured fell runner from Darwen Moor during the annual Aggie's Staircase Fell race
The team assists a fallen climber at Brownstones Quarry - incident 40/2014
Incident 61/2014, a difficult evacuation at Alance Bridge, Yarrow Reservoir, Rivington
Winch training with the Bristow SAR-H Helicopter - January 2015

We cover an area from Darwen in the north to Manchester Airport in the south, Wigan to the west and the centre of Manchester to the east. It’s true – that sounds like a mainly urban area that you wouldn’t associate with “Mountain Rescue” however our patch contains quite a lot of moors and open land which is full of walkers, climbers, mountain bikers and horse riders.

And that’s not the end of the story. Believe it or not many of the incidents we attend aren’t on the moors at all. Whether it’s a 10 year old child who’s fallen off a rope swing and is stuck in a stream bed, an elderly person who’s been reported missing from home, or looking after stranded motorists on snowbound motorways, you’ll find Bolton MRT working alongside the police, ambulance and fire services of Greater Manchester and Lancashire.

Take a closer look at our website and find out more!

Our latest team information leaflet is available for download here too.