A FAMILY of walkers were rescued from the storm-lashed Pennine moors above Holmfirth.

Rescue teams had to be called out after heavy rain turned a stream into a raging torrent, cutting off a path.

The drama happened on the Pennine Way near Black Hill – exactly two months after stranded walkers were helped in identical circumstances.

Wednesday evening’s rescue operation was again led by members of Holme Valley Mountain Rescue Team, who were alerted by police at 7pm.

They found the stream had become swollen by sudden heavy rain earlier in the day and had cut off the walkers.

The rescued people were a husband and wife and their teenage son, from the south of England, who were visiting the area.

They had parked their car on Greenfield Road, close to the top of the Wessenden Valley, earlier in the day and set off on the Pennine Way to Black Hill.

The route fords a stream along the way but the family were caught out by the torrential storm shortly after 4pm and found the way back had become impassable because of the water levels in the stream.

They dialled 999 and alerted police.

Owen Phillips, of the rescue team said: “Normally the Pennine Way walkers are able to ford the stream which is quite shallow, but heavy rain can turn it into something totally different and that happened here.

“There is another bridge a long way downstream but that would entail trying to cross the open moorland and we would never advise that.

“We met up on the Greenfield Road and walked the Way to the stream to find the walkers on the other side.

“We managed to use a mountain rescue stretcher as a makeshift bridge some 200m further upstream. Several of our members had flotation devices and lines and they helped the stranded walkers across the flooded stream to safety.

“All were fit and well and were able to walk back to their car.

“It was exactly the same sort of rescue we had carried out two months earlier with a party of walkers from Switzerland”.