Survivor ‘swam’ to safety
Avalanche survivor Jo Morgan was on her 23rd mission to conquer New Zealand’s highest peaks when tragedy struck.
Her climbing experience may have saved her life.
Morgan says it was sheer luck she survived the ‘‘terrifying wall of ice’’ burying her alive, along with her two guides – Martin Hess and Wolfgang Maier – as the trio climbed Mt Hicks in Aoraki/ Mt Cook National Park about 5.30am yesterday.
Morgan landed face up, with a hand free. Putting her hand up and feeling air, she scraped snow from her mouth, after a 30-minute struggle set off her locator beacon – then spent another 45 minutes digging her way out. As she did, she shouted out to her companions, but there was no response.
When she finally emerged from the snow, she already knew the worst: Her two ‘‘dear friends’’ had perished. Rescuers arrived at the scene at 7.30am. Using an avalanche dog, they had the men’s bodies out in minutes, but the pair could not be revived. Hess and Maier, both in their 50s, were New Zealand residents who were originally from Germany.
Morgan, who is the wife of economist and philanthropist Gareth Morgan, was on her second-to-last climb of the 3000m peak challenge – a mission to climb all 24 New Zealand peaks higher than 3000m. Maier guided Morgan up 22 of them, the first time any guide had taken this on.
Hess was a New Zealand Mountain Guides Association (NZMGA) member, while Maier belonged to the German Mountain Guides Association. Both previously worked for Alpine Recreation, run by the late mountain guide Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, who guided former Prime Minister Helen Clark.
Alpine Recreation director Anne Braun-Elwert said the two men still occasionally guided for the company on a contract basis. ‘‘They were both remarkable people,’’ she said.
NZMGA president Jane Morris said Maier and Hess were both ‘‘experienced, capable guides, working in terrain that was well within their skill levels’’.
Morris described Hess as ‘‘outgoing, positive and engaging’’, with a quirky sense of humour. He moved to New Zealand about 20 years ago and called the country home. ‘‘He recently celebrated his 50th birthday in classic Martin style, in the Ida Valley where he had his home.’’
Maier shifted between Tekapo and Europe, but in the past three years was based in Perth.
Morris said avalanche forecasting was not an exact science. Guides did their best at making the safest possible decisions. ‘‘Occasionally Mother Nature will have the final say and, in this case, with a really tragic outcome.’’
Area Commander Inspector Dave Gaskin said Morgan’s training and skill was key to her survival. ‘‘The technique when you’re involved in an avalanche is to swim, like overarm, and it allows you to keep higher up in the avalanche. [Morgan] managed when the avalanche finished to have one or two arms out and she managed to dig herself out. Unfortunately, the other two [men] were down below.’’
Down in Mt Cook Village,
‘‘Occasionally Mother Nature will have the final say and, in this case, with a really tragic outcome.’’ NZMGA president Jane Morris
Morgan said her goodbyes to her lost friends before being flown to Christchurch, where said she was ‘‘absolutely broken’’.
The trio were tied together on one rope as they climbed. They were ‘‘thrown down the hill’’ by the avalanche’s force, she said.
‘‘We weren’t being foolish or anything and we just hit a slope that . . . it was laden with the type of snow that avalanches [happen].
‘‘They were buried and I was buried too, but I had my face out so I could continue to breathe.
‘‘I’ve survived through nothing more than luck probably . . . and my very dear friends who I climbed a lot with, they haven’t, and so I’m absolutely broken.’’
Gaskin told media at a briefing the trio left their hut about 2am and were coming down Mt Hicks when the avalanche hit. It took emergency services about 90 minutes to get to the scene after the beacon was activated.
There had been bad weather leading up to the avalanche, but there was a ‘‘good weather window’’ when the group were buried, Gaskin said. ‘‘A lot of snow, clear frosty weather, which causes a problem with avalanches – the ice freezes and wet snow falls on top which creates a slide layer.’’
Morgan wrote on Facebook on Tuesday that it had been bleak at the Empress Hut recently, but a 20-hour weather window was forecast so the group planned to leave about 2am yesterday. ‘‘Hopefully Mt Hicks feels like visitors,’’ she wrote.
Department of Conservation (DOC) director general Lou Sanson said the two guides were friends of DOC staff. He was in Mt Cook preparing to give a eulogy for yesterday’s funeral for DOC ranger Scott Theobald, one of three people killed in a helicopter crash on October 18. ‘‘I can’t praise my staff’s professional response enough.’’