SNOWBOUND
Four weeks. Alone, in a hut. In New Zealand’s frozen south, with her partner lying dead outside.
A Facebook message may have saved a woman’s life
ACzech woman who witnessed her partner plunge to his death survived a month trapped alone in a remote and freezing Fiordland wilderness, making help signs in snow and frantically trying to work a hut radio.
The woman, in her 30s, spent three nights after her partner’s death outdoors on the Routeburn Track, which had been officially closed for winter, before stumbling across a Department of Conservation (DoC) hut 2km away.
She smashed her way inside the locked hut. For the next four weeks she existed on meagre supplies of food, firewood and gas left behind by DoC workers.
Police say extreme and severe conditions, including heavy snow and the risk of avalanche, along with her minor injuries — frostbite and possible hypothermia — prevented the woman from walking to safety. No other trampers passed through the area.
The alarm was finally raised this week by the Czech consulate after messages were noticed on social media from concerned friends and family back home. A helicopter search and rescue team found her at the hut on Wednesday afternoon.
She was “ecstatic” and relieved to be rescued, in good physical health, but was clearly traumatised by her ordeal.
Police and DoC yesterday praised the woman for not trying to get out on her own.
“Her last decision was a very good decision — just to hunker down and wait for somebody to come along,” said DoC Wakatipu operations manager Geoff Owen.
The Czech visitors arrived earlier this year and are understood to have been planning to get farm jobs near Dunedin after tramping the Routeburn Track.
Queenstown-based Czech Republic honorary consul Vladka Kennett raised the alarm after the pair had been on the track for 29 days.
She was contacted on Facebook by an acquaintance who was in contact with the missing man’s worried mother, Mrs Kennett told NZME yesterday.
“The mother of the victim said she had no contact for a month. They were meant to be in Queenstown before heading down to Dunedin for farm work.”
The pair were in New Zealand on a working holiday for a year after arriving in March. The man had hoped for work as a ski and snowboard instructor.
They pair intended on tramping on the Routeburn while in the Queenstown area.
Her last decision was a very good decision — just to hunker down and wait for somebody to come along. Geoff Owen
Mrs Kennett contacted police on Wednesday morning. The pair’s car was found in the track’s carpark on the Glenorchy side.
The woman and her partner, in his late 20s, had bought the car and were travelling around the South Island. On July 26, they parked at the northern entrance carpark of the Routeburn Track which links the Mt Aspiring and Fiordland National Parks. It normally takes around three days to tramp the world-renowned 32km trail. They had “some experience” in the back country and were reasonably wellequipped.
But crucially, they’d set out without a personal locator beacon.
On the third day, the man fell, police believe, down a steep slope. His partner scrambled down to him. He was still alive when she got there, but died soon after.
For the next three nights, she survived in the open bush. After fashioning snow shoes from sticks, with frostbite and possible hypothermia, she walked 2km to the Lake Mackenzie Hut.
The DoC warden’s hut had been locked up for winter but the woman broke in. She found a room with four bunks and cooking and heating facilities. There was also some food, but DoC had been careful not to leave too much over winter for fear of attracting rodents.
There was a radio inside the DoC hut but she was unable to make it work as the instructions were in English.
She tried to raise the alarm, even making an “H” in the snow from ash, for help.
“Nobody can prepare you for this,” the woman told police.
Otago Lakes-Central police area commander Inspector Olaf Jensen said the woman made the right decision to stay at the hut.
“Some of the comments asking why she wasn’t found are unhelpful,” he said yesterday. “No one had been through the area and because of her physical capability, she wasn’t able to walk out. Given her experience, and the avalanche risk, she made the decision to stay in the hut, and that was the right decision.
“It’s obviously a very unusual case, given the length of time that the female was at the hut.” .
Police had planned to remove the man’s body yesterday but due to the terrain and weather conditions they had to call off their efforts last night.