Climbing Deaths On New Zealand’s Aoraki Mt. Cook Have Authorities Saying This “Could Have Been Avoided”
December 15, 2008
New Zealand authorities are trying to quickly come up with a way to warn climbers who think that New Zealand offers ‘easy’ climbs for people less experienced. Over the past two weeks, two rare climbing deaths have put this issue back in the forefront of New Zealand’s famed climbing community and on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. The latest incident involved an Australian doctor who had taken a 500 meter plunge off of Aoraki Mt. Cook during a blinding snowstorm. His brother, who happened to be with him at the time of the fatal fall, was forced to build a snow cave about 2500 meters up New Zealand’s tallest peak and await rescue. That rescue came two days later.
Authorities are suggesting that people looking to hike and climb the famed rugged landscapes of New Zealand should re-evaluate and take each trip seriously. They are suggesting that each of these last two incidents could have been avoided if the climbers had been more experienced and better prepared. A Japanese mountain guide, Kiyoshi Ikenouchi, lost his life after getting stranded in severe weather while on the same Aoraki Mt. Cook, just two weeks ago. Both of the latest incidents involved bad weather.
From the Otago Daily Times:
“The last thing LandSAR wants to do is to scare people from exploring our mountains and back-country, but visitors to New Zealand persistently under-rate both the extreme pace at which our weather can change in the hills, and the degree of difficulty of our mountains.”
New Zealand is known as a stomping ground to climbers looking to expand on their experience and know-how of mountain climbing. Many people use this country to brush-up on skills that will eventually lead them to bigger and better peaks. Sir Edmund Hillary, famous for teaming up with Tenzing Norgay to conquer the summit of Mt. Everest in 1953, got his start in climbing through what he learned while growing up in New Zealand.
Authorities think that climbers underestimate their trips, or overestimate their abilities. They say the size of New Zealand’s peaks are not some of the highest in the world, but that climbers should come in knowing that many of the peaks are very difficult. Aoraki Mt. Cook has played host to over 70 deaths since 1907, with nine of those deaths coming on the same route as the one used by the doctor mentioned above: Zerbriggens Ridge.
It is also being reported today that the brother of Dr. Mark Vinar, Miles Vinar, will be heading back to Perth, Australia after witnessing his brother’s fatal fall from the New Zealand peak. Miles Vinar holed himself up in a snow cave trying to wait out a storm. Eventually Miles would dig himself out and signal rescuers with his headlamp. While Miles was talking to The West Australian newspaper, he said that he feared that nobody knew they were gone. The pair had failed to sign a log-book before leaving on their excursion.
During Miles’ time of being inside the secluded snow cave, he was forced to survive on chocolate, pastrami, and cheese for two days, while also being forced to keep digging himself out of the snow. The massive mountain storm kept burying him within his cave:
“It was just a continual flow of snow coming down your face, it was a continual battle just to keep clearing it all the time and every time you would clear it another pile of snow would just keep flooding down.The first big pile that came through when I was in my snow cave sort of buried the entrance and I just managed to dig out of that, so my snow cave was filled in to a large extent and I was sort of stuck out there on the ledge.”
That quote is coming from Miles Vinar, as he spoke to The West Australian earlier today. It is known that Miles and his brother, Dr. Mark Vinar, did have some previous climbing experience before trying to take on New Zealand’s highest peak. The pair had been teaming up over the last couple of years to try other peaks in the area and were planning on using Aoraki Mt. Cooke as a stepping stone to bigger peaks in the United States. Unfortunately, those bigger peaks will not be in the pairs future. Dr. Mark Vinar’s body has still not been found, but Miles contends that he seen proof that his brother did not survive the fall. It is not known what that proof is, but New Zealand authorities contend that all of this “could have been avoided.”
From The Adventurist Vault:
Written by Jason A. Hendricks · Filed Under Survival, climbing accidents |
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