Climbers ‘incredibly lucky’ after avalanche
A Queenstown mountain guide says two climbers caught in an avalanche on Mt Earnslaw, were “incredibly bloody lucky” they could call for help after they forgot their locator beacon.
Wakatipu Alpine Cliff Rescue team member Aaron Halstead, who was involved in yesterday’s search and rescue mission, said while the two Auckland men had a personal locator beacon (PLB), “stupidly . . . [they] left it at home”.
The pair set out from Esquilant Bivvy Hut about 5am, intending to summit the 2819m peak of Mt Earnslaw, near Glenorchy. But a recent storm had delivered “summer storm slab snow” to the peak.
“By the time they got around on to the face it was 7.30-8am and the sun was baking it by then.”
Halstead said the pair triggered the small avalanche — “it was only a few centimetres” — but it was enough to knock them off their feet and throw them about 100m down the slope.
The men came to rest where two crevasses met — with two large holes on either side of them. “If they’d ended up in either one of those, it probably would have been a different outcome . . . They’re incredibly bloody lucky — although one of them is quite injured — but they managed to get mobile reception out.”
Two helicopters involved in the rescue effort found, as they flew around the site, a “window” of cell reception exactly where the men were — 100m above and below them, there was none, Halstead said.
“If they didn’t [get reception] they would have had to walk, probably, 10 to 12 hours to get back to the Muddy Creek carpark.”
Both men were flown to Lakes District Hospital in Queenstown, where a
26-year-old man was admitted with moderate pelvis and chest injuries.
His companion, in his mid-to-late
20s, was checked and discharged. “Avalanches happen,” Halstead said. “Take a PLB — they’re the size of a bloody matchbox now, just take one with you.”