- Patner died crossing the Routeburn
- Spent a month in a warden’s hut
- Rescued by helicopter after alarm was raised
New Zealand park officials wil reasess the monitoring of tourists on the Routeburn hiking trail after a Czech tourist was found in a remote high-country having waited a month to be rescued. Her hiking partner fell and died.
It was only after relatives in Europe raised concerns on social media that New Zealand police were alerted through the Czech consulate, the pair’s car tracked to Glenorchy, near Queenstown, and the woman rescued.
She has started walking the 32km trail on July 24 and her partner fell down a steep slope four days later. There had been heavy snow in the area and the woman spent three nights in the open before she reached the Lake McKenzie camp, where she broke through a window into a warden’s hut which had food, gas and firewood and waited for help. She told polikce she had used fire ashes to make a help sign in the snow and fashioned snow shoes from sticks.
Police flew a helicopter along the route and found the woman in a Department of Conservation warden’s hut. The woman has been treated for minor injuries, frostbite and possible hypothermia.
The stretch of track between Falls Hut and McKenzie Hut, where the woman was found, is open and exposed and hikers are warned to have a day in hand. Routeburn Track varies between an easy country walk and a standard tramping or hiking trail. Although always well graded, it can be stony and rough underfoot.
DOC Te Anau operations manager Greg Lind said “It would be only highly-skilled alpine people that should be attempting to use the Routeburn in winter time. The fact that nobody was up there is certainly not unusual . if she was waiting for rescue from another party coming through she would have been very lucky.”
