Avalanche 'was not survivable'

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 15, Issue 694, 8 July 1997, Page 8

Avalanche 'was not survivable'

Specially trained police avalanche rescue dogs played an important part in the location and recovery of the bodies of two climbers caught in an avalanche on Tuesday afternoon last week — another Ruapehu event that captured national media attention. The bodies of Steven Rusty Court and Hamish Aubrey Coulter, both aged 20 from Auckland were located and recovered from avalanche debris at the base of the Pinnacle Ridge on Mt Ruapehu. A third climber, Dave Hall, survived the avalanche. One body was located on Wednesday afternoon, using the standard avalanche technique of a close methodical pattern search of the debris using long metal probes. Very icy conditions on Wednesday made it very difficult for the dogs to keep their footing in the search area and reduced their effectiveness. "Overnight rain had softened the snow surface making it much easier for the dogs to move around and had also 'cleaned' the slope of the scent of searchers from yesterday." One of the dogs, Buck, located a spot in the debris where a residual scent was present. The body was found 1 .5 metres below the surface. Senior Constable Watson commented that "This showed the value of having specially trained dogs for snow and avalanche work. Scent from a buried victim permeates up through the snow and the dog is able tp detect it." No bleepers The climbers went out in alpine conditions ripe for avalanche without an essential piece of equipment.

Constable Dave Grace, of National Park police, said conditions were still so bad on the mountain the next day that alpine experts in a rescue team were reluctant to start a search. "The only way this tragedy could have been averted was not to have gone out in the weather they did. They were atrocious conditions," Constable Grace said. "It was a north-easterly, which is renowned in this area for piling the snow on top of the peaks, causing high-risk conditions for avalanche, just the type of conditions you don't undertake alpine climbing in." The pair, who were climbing instructors and executives in the Auckland University Rock and Alpine Club, also failed to take a vital piece of safety equipment - small emergency bleepers known as transceivers. "They had transceivers available and for some reason chose not to have them. They had everything else - helmets, ice axes, crampons, good clothing, all the right gear." The Mountain Safety Council executive director, Alan Trist, said it would not have made much difference to the pair's survival in this case, but anyone out in those conditions should have had a bleeper. Inspector Geoff Holloway, of Taumarunui, said early indications were that the avalanche that struck at 4.30pm on Tuesday was not survivable. "The golden rule is that if you survive an avalanche - if the weight of the snow doesn't kill you immediately - then you have a 50 per cent chance of surviving if you are found within half an hour."