And who are the rescue workers giving up their free time, and risking their own safety, to save people lost or injured in the mountains?
Irish Times political correspondent Harry McGee, who is also an experienced hill-walker and mountaineer, described on the podcast one of the rescues he recently witnessed on Carrauntoohil to presenter. A full rescue mission was carried out to recover the walker who had stumbled and suffered fractures making it impossible to continue the climb down.
McGee, who has written about the rising pressures on mountain rescue groups, says the situation is become unsustainable as more people head into the hills without preparation, health and safety officer with Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue, agreed that the number of callouts has soared during pandemic.“There were people heading up the mountains that had probably never been up there before and that’s probably where an awful lot of the callouts were unfortunately.
Condon told the podcast his volunteer rescue work has become “a way of life” for him but admitted that members of the team do risk burn out when they “keep going at it and going at it”.