Incidents in the mountains

Rescuers help walkers off steep snow slope on Mt Ruapehu http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11751809

On the students situation, I've heard back from Michael Woodhouse (the Minister) on behalf of Worksafe NZ. Worksafe wasn't notified of the incident, but also adds that there was no requirement for that to happen because apparently Guided Walking or tramping is not subject to the Health and Safety at Work (Adventure Activities) Regulations 2016. So they're apparently all fine with government regulators having no systematic oversight and letting the institute run its own investigation into how a couple of students were almost killed by its own programme. Whatever. It's not so much that I don't personally trust this specific investigation will be thorough as that I'm not sure how this can be guaranteed with any confidence. Do we need for people to have worse luck and die for that to happen? Edit: Reading 4(5) of the regulations, it looks as if registered schools and tertiary education providers are exempt from being considered as running Adventure Activities for their students. That's very comparable with sports and recreation clubs being exempt, but where education providers are concerned I'd have assumed it'd only be because they were already covered by safety obligations to their students. Maybe not. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2016/0019/latest/whole.html#DLM6725604

Accident on Mt Harper http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/87121796/one-believed-dead-after-climbing-accident accident on Mt cook NP http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/87120961/search-and-rescue-operation-launched-at-aorakimt-cook

Very sad to read about the accident on Mt Harper. This gentleman had retired a few years ago and kept up his activeness. I notice the Herald has posted a picture of the wrong Mt Harper. I don't think anyone has fallen off that one ever.

Saturday I was going down Tongariro (tried the Hardman's ridge, wonderful day!) around 3 pm when I saw 3 people with day backpacks, a Warehouse tent in one hand (are they even waterproof?) and a KMart sleeping bag (like the cheapest stuff, that would feel cold even when sleeping in your home with the heater on), going up the crossing track towards South Crater. They told me they wanted to go camping "on the top". Apart from the fact that camping is prohibited for good reasons (weather, plus rubbish and water contamination…), I tried to explain to them that they would probably spend a miserable night in the best case scenario, but there was also a risk that their tent would be shredded by the winds and worse… Didn't seem to register with them that it might actually be dangerous. I wondered about calling DOC about it but thought that this is probably the same every day of the tourist season… And the weather forecast was fine (with around 2°C windchill at Red Crater), so yeah I thought they would probably be fine. But I am surprised so few people call search and rescue in there, or maybe only a few of them make it to the news? Seeing that kind of behaviour and the enormous crowds on the crossing track made me understand some opinions, as I only visited places in low season up to now and the feeling of the places is just completely different. So yeah back to topic, what are you supposed to do when you see that kind of behaviour? I wouldn't want to see them make the news on the next day if I could have helped to avoid the whole thing altogether. Or am I worrying too much?

Hi @bohwaz. "Apart from the fact that camping is prohibited for good reasons (weather, plus rubbish and water contamination…)" Is this just the Great Walk restrictions within 500m of the track? (It's not really a restriction for safety in weather, although it might have that indirect effect in this case.) That aside it's a tough judgement call to make. Once on Ruapehu my friend and I ended up shadowing an older couple from around the crater. In short it'd have been a definite SAR callout if we'd not been there, and possibly even with us there if we'd not been able to convince the chairlift operators to stay open another 15 minutes. (This was more difficult than I expected!) I guess if you're concerned you can call Police, just to give them a heads-up. That brings in a more qualified person to make decisions, even if the decision is to do nothing. A complication is that merely because you saw some people walking up there with a crappy tent and sleeping bags doesn't necessarily mean they actually went through with it. Sometimes people still end up making reasonable judgement calls having realised the situation they're walking into, so they might have turned around or changed their plans after you left. Some potential incidents are probably avoided because people correct their judgement after they've already been seen by others. That's just another slice of swiss cheese, though. It becomes a problem when it doesn't happen and everything else also continues to go wrong.

situation normal for the Tongariro crossing, there's no shortage of stories of people being ill prepared. that walk is a major incident waiting to happen.. shuttle companies should be offering a boomerang walk so people dont have to go all the way across the top, and direct the more i'll clad walkers onto that walk, they should get serious about making sure people have the correct clothing, a summer shirt and wind breaker or thin midlayer is considered enough to do the walk by the shuttle companies, no attention paid to footwear or the fact that large no's of walkers wear jeans... people feel committed to completing the crossing because they are reliant on their transport picking them up at the other end..

@izogi: yeah didn't mention that 500 metres great walk restriction, just tried to get more sensible arguments, because that's not just the fact that it's forbidden that will stop anyone… Thanks for the advice, yeah will think about that next time...

I've camped on tongariro twice in a storm. once in a snow cave, and once in an A frame tent, the only thing that stopped the tent from being demolished was a large snow wall around it, I still didnt sleep much all night because of the tent flapping and the sound of the wind, i was expecting the tent to shred and i'd have to make a hasty exit down from the mountain.. you need a strong 3 season tent with a hoop frame at least unless you're lucky with the weather....

I've virtually crawled down from Tongariro upper reaches when the wind got up. Like Wayno's idea of a boomerang shuttle on offer. Last Easter we saw people looking absolutely knackered before they had even got to the steep climb up to the saddle. Have no idea how they could possibly make it all the way across.