decision-making on deadly Great Walk criticised

the coroners report said she said he could understand the signs, she knew it was warning them about the dangerous conditions..., but they still left ice axe and crampons in their van according to her

with hypothermia, people often go through a stage of being unreasonable or bad tempered, he was angry when he was taking off his layers of clothes.. as if he was blaming the clothes for his anger

When I did the Routeburn track last year I asked the ranger that was stationed at Routeburn falls,a great guy from Tasmania(can't remember his name),about the story of the chech couple that went into this big mess. He reckons that this story never got cleared up seriously. That when the lady stayed at lake Mackenzie hut for several days other people passed trough lake Mackenzie hut but apparently she didn't raised any alarm and she stayed inside the ranger hut. So probably she was scared for something? Probably she was involved in the accident that lead her partner to death? Who knows...but the look of the ranger that night really made think about it a lot.

the press seldom gets or prints the full story. at the inquest to the death of the israeli lady, somehow the prosecution decided that a ranger told her about an emergency track down to the hollyford from mackenzie hut, thats why they thought she was camped off the track.. there was a move to try and prosecute the ranger for allegedly sending her down the unofficial track. the ranger said he didnt tell her about any track at all. as far as he was concerned there wasnt really a track there to recommend and he didnt advise her at all about going off the track. it wasn't an official track, i'm not sure it was even marked, i'm not clear on the status of the track at all, if its just an ad hoc route that some people know can be used. the descent from mackenzie hut down to the hollyford river,, is steep with thick bush and there are a lot of bluffs.. I cant see any ranger recommending the route to a tramper, let alone one wearing jeans.. i read somewhere someone claiming they were walking with the israeli the day before she disappeared... she wasnt equipped very well, was walking in jeans... cant recall if there was a conversation about a side track , but she wouldnt listen to sound advice given to her, she may have just wanted to go off track and do her own thing and just decided to do it from mackenzie hut. then she slipped and fell over a bluff to her death while she was off the track... at some stage DOC instructed its rangers not to comment to the public about any routes that werent officially maintained DOC tracks. there was a death of an ultimate hikes guide earlier , they were climbing up from the greenstone valley near key summit there is an unofficial route that ultimate hikes were using I believe. i cant remember who mentioned it to me, it wasnt a ranger.. i met a ranger at greenstone hut who told me he couldnt comment about that route and wouldnt recommend any route that wasnt a maintaned DOC track when i mentioned it to him... and this was before the death of the israeli from memory..

The Israeli lady who died in Roaring Creek died in May of 2008. The Ultimate Hikes guide was Feb 2009. Sounds like he was trying to descend the Duck Creek route in poor weather. I've been down it, its very straight forward, although there are bluffs into Duck Creek on your left hand side you need to stay away from. I guess he was in the cloud and went too far to the left. I've been told about the route by a DOC ranger at Greenstone hut in 2016 which was after I had done it, so I guess it depends on who you talk to.