the 1960s, a military group erected, without permission from the local authorities, the St Valery, El Alamein and Curran shelters on the Cairngorm Plateau. They could often become buried in snowdrifts but they attracted hikers and campers. The Curran shelter was of metal covered with boulders, had a floor area and was beside Lochan Buidhe, the highest standing water in Britain. Predicting that it would attract inexperienced walkers, Adam Watson and the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland wrote to the Nature Conservancy to point out the danger of a shelter in that location, but nothing was done about the matter. Mountain rescue Mountain rescue in the central Cairngorms was then the responsibility of the Scottish North Eastern Counties Constabulary. The mountain rescue teams consisted entirely of unpaid civilian volunteers and were co-ordinated by the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland, with the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) being the first to be called on for assistance on the Cairngorm Plateau. They, in turn, could request helicopter support from RAF Kinloss. The Braemar MRT and Kinloss RAF MRT would also attend if there was a major incident, or if the location for the rescue was uncertain. School expedition Expedition leadership In November 1971, a party of 14 students from Ainslie Park School, in Edinburgh, was staying with three leaders at Edinburgh Council's Lagganlia outdoor training centre in Kincraig. In overall charge was the 23-year-old Ben Beattie, the school's instructor in outdoor education with the Mountain Instructor Certificate, who had quite extensive mountaineering experience, but his experience in the Cairngorms in winter was very limited. Also on the expedition was Beattie's girlfriend, 21-year-old Catherine Davidson, who was a final-year student at Dunfermline College of Physical Education and was approved by the school to help run the mountaineering club. She had less overall mountaineering experience, but she had twice been in the Cairngorms in winter. Accompanying them was Shelagh Sunderland, aged 18, who had just started as a Lagganlia volunteer trainee instructor and had no experience in the Cairngorms. Start of expedition On Saturday, 20 November, the party set off on a two-day navigational exercise to cross the Cairngorm Plateau from Cairn Gorm south to Ben Macdui. Because they were very late in starting (it was almost 11:00 when they left Lagganlia), they used the Cairngorm ski lift to get close to the plateau, and as had been planned they separated into two groups: