A woman was airlifted to hospital after falling more than 98ft during a hillwalk on New Year’s Day.

The hiker seriously injured her leg after losing her footing and slipping on an icy patch on a hill above Loch Muick in Aberdeenshire.

Loch Muick is part of the Balmoral Estate, which is also home to the Royal Family’s Balmoral Castle.

The young woman was one of two couples from Glasgow that had stayed overnight in a bothy near the Spittal of Glen Muick.

A multi-agency rescue operation was launched following her tumble shortly after 1pm on Monday.

The callout was the first of the year for Braemar Mountain Rescue Team (MRT), which saw two volunteers scramble to the scene via a vehicle and three other colleagues airlifted to the site via HM Coastguard’s Inverness-based helicopter.

Malcolm MacIntyre, Braemar MRT’s support manager, told Sky News that the woman fell somewhere between 98ft and 131ft.

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He said: “They were on a steep, sort of icy, snowy slope on top of the hill and she’s obviously stood on that and slipped and gone about maybe 30-40 metres.”

The woman was treated at the scene before being flown to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Underneath Braemar MRT’s Facebook post about the incident, a woman wrote: “Can’t thank you enough for helping my daughter today. She’s comfortable, safe and warm in Aberdeen hospital.”

Mr MacIntyre and his team escorted the woman’s companions back to their car.

He said: “They were a bit spooked by the whole thing.”

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Mr MacIntyre said the ground “wasn’t that steep for a well-equipped hillwalker”.

Although it was fairly mixed ground and the group were able to break through the snow crust and into the heather, they were not equipped with ice axes or shoe crampons.

Appealing to those planning to head out onto Scotland’s hills this winter, Mr MacIntyre said: “Whatever you’re doing at this time of year, you need to have an ice axe and crampons and know how to use them.

“The paths are treacherous when it’s like hard, frozen water and ice.

“You need walking crampons. The little pavement spikes are okay for around town, but they’re not really for use in the hills.”

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