WARM weather over the Easter bank holiday weekend brought thousands of people to the Dales - and a busy few days for the Cave Rescue Organisation (CRO).

Jonty Rhodes of the Clapham-based organisation, said members had attended seven incidents in seven days, with six of them over the bank holiday weekend.

He also made a plea on behalf of rescue organisations to people driving into the Dales to park with consideration and not to block roads.

"Over the weekend, we did have two occasions where access and progress to incidents while driving under blue lights was hampered by the sheer quantity of vehicles parked up on country lanes, and more importantly, how they were parked.

"We aren’t in a position to provide people with advice, but if we could offer a ‘’gentle reminder’’ to consider whether an emergency vehicle could pass when parking up it could literally be a lifesaver."

Within one 12 hour period, the team attended an injured walker on Whernside summit and a medical emergency within the depths of White Scar Cave.

"We also had an usual first for the team when we were called out to two members of the same family in completely separate incident at two different locations on the same day."

Easter Saturday was the busiest day of the holiday, with the team attending three call outs in just four hours.

"Two involved difficult stretcher carries, which, in the hot spring weather were very thirsty work, we were very grateful of the generous donation of cold drinks provided by the team at Ingleton Waterfalls Trail," said Mr Rhodes.

He added that members had worked very hard over the busy period, not only in attending callouts, but also by staffing the control room and making sure vehicles were replenished with fresh equipment ready for the next callout.

"Everyone involved did a fantastic job and should be very proud of themselves,"he said.

"Over the last week, we have also worked with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, North Yorkshire Police, North West Air Ambulance and Yorkshire Air Ambulance."