Couple missing in Kahurangi National Park
https://www.police.govt.nz/news/release/search-commences-overdue-trampers
Police are asking for the public's help to locate two trampers who failed to return from the Kahurangi National Park when expected.
Jessica O'Connor and Dion Reynolds, both 23 and from the Tasman area, started out on 9 May and have not yet returned.
The pair are understood to have entered near the Anatori River car park.
Police staff commenced a search today. This will resume again tomorrow morning.
Police are asking for anyone who has been around the Anatori, Webb, Kokopu, Independent and Fraser rivers since 8 May and who may have seen the pair to get in touch.
Anyone with information should contact Police on 105 and quote event number P042228949.
114 comments
For those not wanting to watch through the video, as the text of the articles did not mention this when I read them, they were found in the headwaters of Frazer Stream.
Great to hear they are alive and well.
Will be interesting to see if we ever hear what their intended route was.
It says they got lost [fairly early](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/417655/missing-trampers-dion-reynolds-and-jessica-o-connor-found-alive-police-confirm) in their tramp.
And only minor injuries.
I know they like you to stay put, but staying put while running out of food?
But if people like this don't take a PLB, who will?
It says They only moved as far as a water supply
>It says they got lost fairly early in their tramp.
>And only minor injuries.
>I know they like you to stay put, but staying put while running out of food?
Sounds like one or both of them had a minor (as in not life threatening) injury, but bad enough to not make it out under their own steam through rugged and unknown country. At that point the decision is whether to stay put together or for one to try to make it out to get help.
They were probably in the headwaters of a gnarly creek, not sure which one or if it got even worse further down. Either way they'd be feeling pretty shook up after a slip.
Staying put together is a reasonable, lower risk decision, even with minimal food as long as someone is eventually going to raise the alarm. You're not going to die from starvation in two or three weeks with a tent, sleeping bags and fire.
After a week with no food you'll be fine staying put but weaker so the risk of then trying to get out goes up.
Plenty of people have sat on the wrong side of a raging river for a day or two, got hungry then tried to cross, died as a result.
I would have thought you could have got a big enough fire going to get noticed more quickly, but it's easy to also imagine they could have been stuck on some little bouldery beach between two waterfalls with not much more than wet scrub and mountain beach around them.
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I think staying where you are is the best advice in nearly all circumstances, but it almost certainly works better if you've left intentions with detail on where your going, backup plans, and when your trusted contact should hit the panic button if you haven't returned.
I'm not clear on all the detail but from all the reporting that doesn't seem to have happened here. Hopefully it's learned from.
Intentions are what gives other people the ability to find you and either help you or resolve what happened, even if everything else has failed.
Yeah, detailed, dated, written intentions would have helped a lot, and they obviously bit off a lot more than they could chew, but my feeling is their decision to stay put and wait it out once they got in trouble was the right one.
Edit to add:
From the latest picture, it looks like they were a bit lower down ie. in thick bush near the stream rather than right up in the sub alpine. I guess that's why the air force helicopter with all the fancy infrared gear didn't pick them up, just lucky a helicopter was in the catchment and someone was looking in the right direction when their fire was putting out enough smoke to be seen.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/CJF_GD6lcsJ-ZqHQXAFjN2UCQOk=/620x344/smart/filters:quality(70)/cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/R5TLK5I23NB4TG7KU3Z4QKFAKY.jpg
By the way, what's with the markdown syntax on this forum, I thought !(Image URL) would embed an image.
Such a good outcome, I have to say I was expecting the worst after this time. So glad for them and their families and friends and all the searchers. Interesting that they set out on May 9, which was during level 3 - Recreation rules for level 3 included:
• Short walks (up to 3 hours total) on easy trails are permitted. Long, backcountry tramping or overnight hiking is not allowed (from sportnz.org.nz. The govt covid website directs you to this page).
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An excellent result for the pair and for everyone involved in the search.
Stuff have an overview map showing the rescue location: https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/4/y/m/i/p/1/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.710x400.20f4pj.png/1590567686334.jpg
A bit of searching on topomap suggests the rescue location was somewhere around here: BN23 4986 8726
Regarding the Level 3 pick up earlier in the thread...perhaps that's the main reason they stayed away from tracks and huts (and officials) and kept their plans on the down low. Looking at the map, aside from a good skills and conditioning challenge, what is there to even see/do in there apart from thick, wet bush? If they were hunting, sure thing. But it looks like a grim place to choose for winter hiking.
We keeping hearing about how experienced and well equipped they were. But no topo and gps? My best guess is they crossed from the Anatori valley to the Frazer at some point (which looks like a mongrel of a bush bash), got knocked around in doing so, discovered that the Frazer was not safely descended, then decided to hunker down rather than risk the traverse again. Just not really sure how experienced, equipped hikers get "lost" in that terrain. Surely they at least knew which valley they were in and that the water was flowing towards where they needed to go (???)
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Started by | waynowski |
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