A mountain rescue team utilized the What3words app to find four tourists caught in a snowstorm

A group of hikers trapped near the peak of the UK’s tallest mountain were rescued by a Scottish mountain rescue team using an app that helped locate them.

The tourists were stuck in a blizzard close to the summit of Ben Nevis. They had ventured out for a hike but got lost. To make matters worse, they were ill-prepared for the weather, wearing only sneakers and lacking essential equipment like ice axes, crampons, and maps.

Fortunately for the tourists, they had a mobile phone with signal, and on it, the What3words app.

Rescuers from the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team in Scotland used the app to pinpoint the group's location on Monday night. What3words functions as an intuitive GPS, assigning three simple words to any location on Earth.

The tourists were deemed “extremely lucky” to have survived, enduring a blizzard with wind chills reaching -20 degrees, all while lacking the proper gear and clothing, said the rescue team.

“They had no winter gear – no ice axes, no crampons, and, as far as we know, no maps,” the rescue team shared on Facebook. “Three of them were wearing sneakers! They were about 150 meters down into Coire Eoghainn on steep ice, and if they had slipped or fallen further, the consequences could have been far more severe.”

After being rescued, the four men were flown by helicopter to Belford Hospital for treatment.

While the rescue team praised the tourists for surviving some of the “toughest weather this year,” they acknowledged the situation could have easily turned out much worse.

Ben Nevis, a well-known tourist spot, is the highest mountain in the British Isles, towering at 1,343 meters. In March 2019, two climbers tragically died, and two others were injured after an avalanche struck the mountain.

How it works

The What3words app guided rescuers to a spot on the mountain just meters away from where the tourists were stranded.

The London-based startup works by splitting the world into 57 trillion squares, assigning each one a unique, three-word address. It claims to be able to pinpoint almost any location on Earth.

For example, Times Square’s address is crops.cards.gifts.

The base camp of Mount Everest is pinpointed as grapple.crewmember.thunderstorm.

The app then allows users to open the address in mapping services like Google Maps or Apple Maps, which can guide them to the exact location.

Originally available only in English, the app has now expanded to support 36 languages, including Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin.