Lessening the crossing risk
The popularity of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is having unintended consequences.
Over summer alone 15 search and rescue operations were needed. This included nine people who were rescued from the crossing over Easter weekend and six rescued during a week in January.
Search and rescue operations aren’t cheap. Taxpayer money is involved, the lives of volunteers and public servants are put in danger and expensive assets and equipment get put to the test. A reasonable question to ask is how can this overall outlay of time, effort and resource be avoided?
A meeting scheduled this week between the NZ Police, Department of Conservation, Land Search and Rescue and iwi will work on this. All agencies have a role in managing, advising or overseeing the Tongariro National Park and Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Rescues have also led several shuttle operators to agitate for DOC to take greater responsibility for allowing the track to remain open, regardless of adverse weather and the high probability of incidents.
Wilderness magazine reported recently that some shuttle operators believe that competition and the desire to make money is creating unnecessary risks and DOC is not doing enough. They say that while some operators are cautious and respect warnings and weather forecasts, others are placing people at risk, dropping off hikers regardless of the conditions.
That’s at odds with how we treat other high-risk places. We close the Desert Road to prevent accident and injury during bad weather, we close the ski fields during bad weather yet we allow anyone to access our promoted walking trails despite the likelihood of them getting lost, hurt or needing rescue during the same bad weather.
No one agency apart from DOC has the power to close the crossing, even if it believes conditions are unsafe.
Senior Constable Barry Shepherd of Taupo¯ Police says Police have no jurisdiction to close walking tracks and its role was only to provide assistance when required.
Mountain Safety Council communications manager Nick Kingstone said while while it was not the the Council’s place to get involved in infrastructure management decisions, they did assess and monitor data from coronial inquiries and information about injuries and fatalities to identify both trends and solutions.
Next month the Mountain Safety Council will release a report titled A Walk in the Park?. It explores incident data — injury, search and rescue and fatality — over a 10-year period and looks for differences or patterns, including gender and nationality. The organisation has also partnered with the four major outdoor equipment retailers to make sure the customers get a consistent outdoors safety message.
If the forecast is bad, there’s nothing to stop people going onto the Crossing and getting themselves into difficulty, with rescuers being called on again to save them. In light of the risks, temporary closure of an alpine walking track would seem a reasonable and practicable solution.