A couple and their 15-year-old daughter decided to walk up to Los Peñones de San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada – it was a sunny Sunday and the snow was soft and easy to cross.

They reached their destination without any problems, but as they turned back the sun was now low in the sky and shadows were lengthening. And that’s when the problems started.

Where the snow was already in shadow it had begun to harden as the temperature dropped it turned it from and easy-to-cross surface to an icy one, and as none of them had crampons – the daughter was only wearing sports shoes – they couldn’t cross it.

They phoned for help and it soon came, in the form of the Guardia Civil.

The moral of the story is don’t stray too far up there unless you have all the correct equipment.

(News: Guejar Sierra, Sierra Nevada, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: www.carlete.com)