Two climbers who were almost buried by an avalanche and forced to shelter in a snow cave are recovering from a dramatic rescue from the Remarkables Range near Queenstown.
The men, aged 22 and 25, were caught in the avalanche in white-out conditions on Double Cone on Tuesday.
They managed to dig themselves out and raise the alarm, but several failed rescue attempts in bad weather meant they had to wait until Wednesday afternoon to be flown off the mountain.
Wakatipu alpine rescue co-ordinator Russell Tilsley said the men had been in climbing in perfect conditions over the weekend, but the weather deteriorated on Monday.
"They got into white-out, their tent was pretty much buried overnight with the snow," he said.
"They decided to try to walk out and as they were walking out they crossed an area through a little gully and triggered a substantial, what we'd probably call a class two avalanche, which is big enough to bury people.
"Luckily they were on the edge of that and were both caught and carried about 20 metres. They were only partially buried and managed to extract themselves."
Rescuers at the place the climbers stayed the night on Double Cone. Photo: Supplied/ Russell Tilsley
Tilsley said rocks came down with the avalanche, so the men were extremely lucky not to have been caught further across the slope.
The climbers moved to relative safety but could not make it off the mountain without help because of the avalanche danger.
Rescuers twice tried to reach the men by helicopter on Tuesday but were hampered by bad weather, so they built a snow cave to shelter overnight, Tilsley said.
"They were very experienced, they had a lot of good equipment and in the end they made a good decision to hunker down, go back to a safe area and call for help," he said.
Rescuers again tried to reach the pair by air on Wednesday morning, but instead had to land 1.2 kilometres away and 300 metres below the climbers' position.
Tilsley said three rescuers eventually reached the men on foot in difficult conditions shortly after 10.45am.
"It was pretty heavy going, the snow was quite deep, it was sort of white-out, they had freezing rain, they all came back pretty soaked and frozen," he said.
The weather then cleared enough for the helicopter to fly in and take the climbers and rescue crew back to Queenstown.
Heliworks Queenstown pilot Nick Nicholson said he was battling 70 km/h winds and poor visibility on Tuesday's aborted rescue missions.
"It was just such a precarious situation with the stability of snow and the weather. They did the right thing by staying put and calling for help because it was pretty volatile up there for those couple of days," he said.
"It's nice to be able to get the guys off the hill without them being hurt."
The climbers are said to be shaken by their ordeal but relieved to have escaped unhurt.
The Remarkables Photo: Bernard Spragg, CC1.0
