The Cairngorm Plateau disaster, also known as the Feith Buidhe disaster, occurred in November 1971 when six fifteen-year-old Edinburgh school students and their two leaders were on a two-day navigational expedition in a remote area of the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands. While the group was on the high plateau, the weather deteriorated and so they decided to head for the Curran shelter, a rudimentary refuge. When they failed to reach it, the group became stranded in the open for two nights in a blizzard. Five youths and the leader's assistant died of exposure. A sixth student and the group's leader survived the ordeal with severe hypothermia and frostbite. The tragedy is regarded as Britain's worst mountaineering accident. A fatal accident inquiry led to formal requirements being placed on leaders for school expeditions. After acrimony in political, mountaineering and police circles, the Curran shelter was demolished in 1975. Background Cairngorms The Cairngorms are a mountainous region of Scotland that are named after the Cairn Gorm Mountain, which overlooks Aviemore, the main town in the area. The central region is an area of high granite plateau at about and is deeply dissected by long glacial valleys, which run roughly from north to south. Between two of the valleys, the Lairig Ghru and the Lairig an Laoigh, extends the Cairngorm Plateau of granite boulders and gravel where Cairn Gorm itself and the Ben Macdui, the highest mountain in the Cairngorms and the second-highest in the British Isles, are the main summits. The edges of the plateaux are in places steep cliffs of granite and excellent for skiing, rock climbing and ice climbing. Weather conditions Their height, distances and severe and changeable weather make the Cairngorms the most challenging range for climbers in the United Kingdom. Snow can fall at any time during the year, and snow patches persist all summer. For snow and ice climbing, the area is the most dependable in Britain. The plateau area has a subarctic climate and supports only sparse tundra vegetation. The shattered terrain is more like the high ground in the arctic regions of Canada or Norway than the European Alps or North American Rocky Mountains. The weather often deteriorates rapidly with elevation, so even when there are moderate conditions 150 metres below the plateau, the top can be stormy or misty and there can be icy or powdery snow. Even when no snow is falling,