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Guide killed on NZ peak
01/01/2008 22:27 - (SA)
Wellington - A Scottish woman mountaineer watched helplessly as her climbing guide fell to his death on New Zealand's highest peak, 3 754-metre Mount Cook in the Southern Alps, news reports said on Wednesday.
The pair were about 350 metres from the summit on Tuesday when a lump of ice came loose and the 54-year-old guide fell 60 metres, receiving fatal head injuries.
The guide, whose name was not immediately released, had climbed past the woman to secure their ropes to an anchor when he fell, Ross Campbell, of the Department of Conservation, told the Dominion Post.
"He was climbing up in a gully, slipped and fell past the anchor and his client," he said. "She didn't lose her footing at all. She had the unfortunate situation of seeing someone fall past her without being able to help. It would have been very traumatising."
The mountain, which is very popular with tourist climbers in the southern hemisphere summer, has now claimed 219 lives.
Veteran mountaineer Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, who has been a guide on the mountain for more than 30 years, told The Press newspaper that it was unusual for a fatality to happen at such high altitude.
"The hardest parts are usually lower down the mountain," he said.
Braun-Elwert said in September that he had cancelled all scheduled climbs to the top of Mount Cook for the rest of 2007 because global warming had made it too dangerous.
He said that packed snow on the Linda Glacier, the most popular route to the summit, which would normally be 10 metres thick, was wafer-thin and climbers had to use a track with ice cliffs prone to avalanches on either side.
Braun-Elwert said that it used to be safe to climb until the end of December but warmer temperatures causing snow and ice to melt had shortened the seasons over the past 10 years.
Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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