SAR are certainly being kept busy. There have been 2 people rescued from a slip face in the Ruahines, a guy who was lost in fog in the Ureweras and now a Greek tourist lost on Ruapehu!
Have you got a link to the one in the Ureweras? I missed that one.
It was on www.sportzhub.com.nz website which is mainly about sports events, and includes adventure racing and some tramping stuff too.
That link didn't work for me, but try http://www.sportzhub.com/site/
I was at the top of the Bruce with a friend about 30 minutes before they found that texting Greek man, but we didn't realise it'd all been happening until we arrived home. (The helicopter and police officer now makes sense.) Even later that afternoon, we ran down to catch an older British couple whom we'd lunched with at the crater lake. They were having problems on the way down including disintegrating boots and exhaustion, then worrying about missing the 4pm chair-lift closing time and rushing down the wrong side, which didn't help given all the moraine they then had to sidle around. They were very embarrassed and appreciative, but just weren't having such a good day I think. It surprises me that there aren't more accidents, though, even in some of these built-up places like skifields. They could so easily have ended up cold and disoriented in the dark or cloud, and after that it's just lucking out with weather. It's probably a testament to how professionally SAR is organised.
Thanks for that link. Maungapohatu to Wairata, that's the area that we did our big 5 day trip in. Yeah, I guess easy to get disorientated. But I would have thought that the bush and topography would be more of an issue than the cloud.
Hi pmcke. I think it was largely that they weren't too experienced in the terrain -- they were into about their 3rd week of an 8 week holiday in a campervan, and just decided to walk up Ruapehu based on loose information (as people do). This was up above 2000 metres so there wasn't much bush to get lost in, but plenty of moraine that all looks the same if you can suddenly only see 50 metres ahead of you. The boot and exhaustion issues just meant it was taking 3 times longer to get anywhere than it might have otherwise.
Oops, two conversations going on at once. I was talking about the chap in the Ureweras.
Yes, problems on a fine day on Ruapehu. It is similar on the Tongariro crossing. It is amazing there aren't more incidents.
Ha, opps, sorry about that. I read your comment and imagined in my head that you'd switched topics half way through.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3305349/Police-blast-late-night-tramper
...and another just for fun. Raises interesting questions about tramping at night, something i've done many times after a late drive from chch on a friday evening. Anyone else guilty?? Is it always that dangerous?
I have tramped at night, it can be quite a different and enjoyable experience. That being said I take a few basic precautions such as sticking to aereas I know well or I know have a easy to follow track and not going solo when planning a night tramp. I think with basic common sense precautions like that its fine.
What got me about this story is that they showed up at the hut at 11.30 pm and she showed up "around midnight"....so 30 mins later. She wasn't lost, just lagging behind. It was a bit foolish to let someone fall behind by themselves in a night tramp, but not sure it really deserves a bollocking in a national news site. A quiet talk to the group with suggestions given to ensure the party stays together in the future would seem like a adequate and reasonable response.
Plus the way the article is worded gives the impression that all night tramping is just asking for disaster and that showing up at a hut late is never on....I personally have no problems with people showing up late to a hut I am staying in if they make a reasonable effort to keep the noise level down. I can understand a hut warden being a bit grouchy at being woken up at that time and with that sceanario though :)
