Avalanche alert as frontal system moves up country

LISTEN up backcountry skiers, trampers, mountaineers, hunters and tourists — the avalanche risk is about to rise.

The MetService says higher parts of the mountains from Mt Cook to Fiordland are likely to get 3m of snow, as a frontal system begins moving slowly up the country today.

The primary concern in the South Island was prolonged heavy rain, which would fall as snow in higher areas at first but would lower heading into tomorrow and Monday.

New Zealand Mountain Safety Council spokesman Nick Kingstone said the rain was likely to change the snow pack ‘‘quite dramatically’’ and the conditions would heighten the risk of avalanches, making large areas of the South Island back country very dangerous to travel in.

Wanaka search and rescue coordinator Phil Vink told the Otago Daily

Times yesterday the warning applied particularly to backcountry skiers who ‘‘went off the back of skifields’’.

But even trampers on tracks on the valley floors of the Mt Aspiring National Park and elsewhere could encounter avalanches.

Avalanche forecaster Trev Streat said the snow could lead to large ‘‘storm slab’’ avalanches reaching valley floors, and they could release without warning.

Skiers were warned to stay within ski area boundaries where snow safety teams managed the terrain.

Mr Kingstone said the storm would begin ‘‘somewhere around Fiordland and then slowly roll up the country’’.

‘‘The message is really, for people to postpone any backcountry travel for the next 48 hours, but if you are going into those regions make sure you check the avalanche advisories very carefully,’’ he said.

Part of State Highway 94, between the Hollyford road junction and the Chasm, had been closed because of ‘‘an avalanche hazard’’, the NZ Travel Agency said.

Motorists were advised to expect delays or continued road closure into the weekend, and a further road condition update would be issued at 7.30am today.