Two dead in the Tararuas

it may be one of them got in to trouble and the other stopped to try and help, then decided he had to start moving but by that stage he wasnt far from becoming imobilised himself. back in the 70's three runners went of for a run in the rimutakas for a few hours..... a southerly hit while they were out. none of them made it back alive.

> Tramping should not and never will be a 'safe' pastime; there always will be an element of risk we need to be aware of and manage. But these two appear to have been oblivious to the risk they were sticking their necks into, and did little to manage it effectively. I think this is a big component of the difference for me. Risk is always there, especially if and when you transition from regular tramping into something like alpine mountaineering, but even tramping has its risks. These risks can be managed, and plenty of reasonable measures can be taken to reduce the risks. There are generally accepted guidelines within the communities for this. As you've said, though, the description of what happened here seems to be that these people didn't clearly understand what the real risks were at all. They simply waded into them, without any systematic attempt to manage them. They were probably going to be lucky. Most people get lucky, but every so often someone doesn't.

I have to admit the Seddon Beddington/Rosie Jackson scenario is often on my mind now in snowy and windy terrain. We call it a Seddon Beddington situation. And travelling down a small stream on Sunday I was thinking of the time a young fella got his boot caught in between rocks in a river and the current pushed him over and drowned him!

seddon bennington was at the other end of the spectrum, extensive relevant experience but from what people who knew him were saying he had pushed his luck all his life and he was over confident about his ability in difficult conditions because he always came through when he winged it, aparently never used a compass and seldom used a map, juset went for it almost regardless of the scenario and that just fed his confidence in himself until eventually he met a situation he couldnt cope with which happened to be severe enough to kill him. to a certain extent I'm not alone in relishing being out in bad weather, up to a point , but i'm mindful of tha attitude having the potential to get me into trouble or even kill me and not getting carried away and being prepared to turn back or shorted my trip at any point due to bad weather.

> ...until eventually he met a situation he couldnt cope with which happened to be severe enough to kill him ...and most likely someone else, which makes it even more sad.