The time I accidentally triggered a mountain rescue

You’re going to a place where, if you leave the matches behind, you’ll probably die.

That was the stark warning given to us in 1992 by the leader of my Venture Scouts unit before we headed off on the 627 mile minibus journey to our Easter camp in Sutherland.

If you’re not familiar with Sutherland, it’s basically the very remote top left hand corner of Scotland – an area which the EEC (as it was called back then) classified as a “wet desert” because it has….

an extremely low population density (like a desert).....

vast open barren landscapes (like a desert)..... 

and….

Biblical quantities of rain.

Our base for the week was what had once been the primary school in a tiny place called Elphin – by now converted to a hostel because there’s only so long you can justify keeping a school open after its sole pupil has moved onto secondary school.

But for three days of our time in Scotland we were to be sent out in small groups to complete a 50 mile hike across part of this wet desert. 

And one of those three days would be spent climbing to the top of a mountain and coming back down again – just for fun.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Highlands of Scotland in April, but it can be quite chilly (as well as wet).

And so, although we had tents with us on our hike as an emergency backup option, our Plan A was to stay each night in a bothy.

Bothies, in case you’ve never had the pleasure, are a form of overnight accommodation that you’re unlikely to find on Booking.com or AirBnB.

They’re basically small stone shacks, abandoned long ago by farmers and crofters, and now left open for anyone to use for free – but on a first-come-first served basis (hence the backup tents).

The facilities on offer at each bothy vary from minimal…. 

….all the way down to fuck all.

No electricity. No running water. No toilets.

Just four stone walls, a fireplace, and a roof that (hopefully) doesn’t leak.

If you’re lucky there’ll be a table and chairs. 

If you’re unlucky a previous guest will have chopped them up and used them as firewood.

Here’s a modern day picture of the bothy we found ourselves staying in at the end of our first day of hiking.

And it was from here – Suileag bothy – that we would be setting off on day two to climb Mount Suilven.

Suilven isn’t a particularly high mountain by Scottish standards, but what it lacks in height it makes up for in sheer drama.

It rises straight out of the moor like a giant shark’s fin. And from the bothy, it looked to be miles away.

Our group consisted of: 

• me (obviously)
  

• my best mate, Phil
  

• Blakey Jnr (not his real name, but his Dad who was a teacher at our school used to have a moustache that made him look like Blakey from On The Buses)
  

• John Thomas (aka John Tom – real name James Thomas but, well… teenage boys – what can I say?)
  

• Brown-Trousers Neil (a nickname he acquired after an unfortunate incident on the Paris Metro during a French exchange trip many years earlier)

Now, for reasons I can’t remember – and which certainly had nothing to do with the requirements of the Queen’s Scout Award – it was decided that John Tom should stay at the bothy to “guard” our half finished bottle of Famous Grouse.

We had a “when in Rome” approach to deciding what illicit alcohol to consume at Scout camps. So in Scotland we drank Scotch (whether we liked it or not), in Somerset we had cider, in the North East it was Newkie Brown, etc etc.

And so the remaining four of us – Phil, Blakey, Brown-Trousers Neil, and I – set off to conquer Suilven.

The weather was doing that classic Highland thing where it can't quite decide between sunny, sleeting, or just blowing you sideways off the mountain.

So it does all three. All at once.

But we were fine. 

We had waterproof clothing, sturdy boots, and Zippo lighters (because there was no way we were going to get our Marlboro reds lit with matches in that kind of wind).

After a couple of hours, we found ourselves two-thirds of the way up the mountain at the base of the final climb – the steep bit.

And this was where things started to go a bit wrong….

Because it was at this point that Brown-Trousers Neil suddenly decided that he really, really didn’t like heights.

Or ledges.

Or the fact that the wind was doing its level best to turn him into a human kite.

He went white as a sheet, sat down on a rock, and refused to go any further.

No amount of encouragement – or light-hearted mocking – was going to shift him.

And we were worried that if we pushed him too hard, another pair of trousers might have to be sacrificed.

So Phil very nobly volunteered to stay with him while Blakey and I pressed on to the summit.

The plan was simple. We’d tag the top. Then come back down the same way, pick up Phil and Neil, and head back to the bothy in time for tea and whisky.

At least, that was the theory.

In practice, the path to the summit took us off to one side.

And so, by the time we were making our way back down, it was obvious we weren’t going to pass directly by the rock where we'd left Phil and Neil.

We could see them off in the distance, though, as we got level with them.

So we did what any sensible 16-year-olds would have done in the pre-mobile phone era.

We cupped our hands to our mouths and shouted across the mountain:

"PHIL!!"

Phil heard us and waved.

We waved back and signalled that we would meet him and Brown-Trousers Neil at the bottom of the mountain rather than try to make our way across to where they were waiting.

And so Phil and Neil got up and started heading down on a roughly parallel course to ours.

Sorted.

Or so we thought….

Because, meanwhile, back at Suileag bothy….

John Tom had decided that the best way to “guard” our Scotch was to hide most of it in his stomach.

Despite this, he’d also heard Blakey and me shouting across the mountain to Phil.

Except he didn’t hear “Phil!”

What he heard was:

“HELP!!”

And so, with the best of intentions, JT sprang into action (with the kind of springiness that only comes after half a bottle of whisky) and he ran….

…three miles across bog and moorland to the nearest farm to raise the alarm.

Events then moved fast. Warning bells sounded and a helicopter was diverted to come and find us.

It was soon stood down, though, because by the time our Scout leader arrived on the scene (just behind the Mountain Rescue representative), all four of us hikers were safely back at the bothy.

The ensuing explanations, apologies, and small cash donation to the Mountain Rescue service should have been the end of the matter. But…

In the midst of all this excitement, a local newspaper reporter had got wind of the story.

Before we knew it, a distorted version of events had reached the BBC in London. 

And so, when our parents turned on the TV to watch the evening news, they were greeted by a story about a group of Scouts from Chigwell being lost on a Scottish mountain – which led to jammed phone lines back in Essex as 30 sets of worried parents tried to find out if their child was one of the ones involved.

All of which just goes to show…

When your message isn’t clear – or gets distorted along the way – people will fill in the blanks themselves.

And they won’t always come to the right conclusion.

What we shouted was “Phil!”

What got heard was “Help!”

And before you know it, there’s a rescue helicopter in the air and a BBC reporter scaring the hell out of your parents.

It’s funny in hindsight.

But in marketing, confusion like that is a conversion killer.

If your ads, landing pages, or emails aren’t crystal clear – if they leave potential clients unsure what you do or who it’s for – then they won’t wave back like Phil did.

They’ll wander off in a different direction.

Or worse, they’ll tell others the wrong story about you.

So if you’re not getting as many leads as you want in your business, it might not be for want of trying.

It could just be that your message – like ours on that mountainside – isn’t landing the way you think it is.

Maybe you’re posting on social media but getting tumbleweed in return.

Or you’ve got an expensive website that never actually generates any enquiries.

Either way, your signal isn’t getting through.

And if that’s the case, it’s probably time to sort it.

Which is precisely why I wrote "The Smarter Soloist's Guide to Building an Automated Lead Machine."

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No rescue helicopters required.

Speak soon,
David.

PS - If you're not getting as many leads and clients as you'd like, it might be your messaging that's the problem - even if it doesn't look like it.

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