Nine-hour rescue for stranded walker
A walker has been rescued in a nine-hour operation after becoming stranded in blizzard conditions about 3,000 ft up a mountain.
Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team was called out on Saturday evening to help the man on Carn Ban Mor, a Munro-height mountain in the Glen Feshie area.
The walker's feet and boots had frozen, which resulted in him cutting the laces off his footwear.
He was found after rescuers scaled the summit of the mountain.
The mountain rescue team said the coastguard helicopter had made "strenuous attempts" to reach the casualty and drop the rescue team off as high as possible, but that their efforts were thwarted by the blizzard conditions.
A team of rescuers climbed up from the valley to find the man and bring him to safety, reaching him in the early hours of the morning.
In a Facebook post Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team wrote: "We were getting quite concerned for the casualty.
"He had cut the laces off his boots because both his boots and his feet were frozen.
"It sounded like he was in a bad way and it was proving really difficult to get to him.
"In the end, a party of Cairngorm Team members had to climb up from the valley to the summit of the hill to locate and rescue the walker.
"The helicopter crew kept trying to reach the stranded walker through the night, but the weather was simply too bad.
"The rescue effort lasted nine hours."
Meanwhile, rescuers in Wester Ross are continuing their efforts to find Neil Gibson, who has been missing since Thursday.
The 63-year-old, along with his brother Alan and their black Pointer dog named Archie, set out for Achnashellach at 07:35.
Mountain rescue teams have been searching on the ground, while both the Inverness and Stornoway Coastguard helicopters have been flying over a huge area in an effort to find them.