KEY POINTS:
As severe winter conditions continue across the country, bringing record snowfalls to the mountains, alpine safety experts have spoken out about foolhardy expeditions into the backcountry which risk lives.
Two separate rescues over the weekend safely lifted a total of nine people off South Island mountains, but it was more good luck than good planning which saved their lives, say rescuers.
A group of Australian tourists stranded in blizzard conditions in Aoraki-Mount Cook National Park on Saturday were "typically ill-prepared", New Zealand Land Search and Rescue spokesman Phil Melchior told the Southland Times.
Inexperienced alpine tourists were an ongoing problem here and accounted for 30 per cent of back country fatalities, he said.
"People come to New Zealand and don't understand just how fast the weather can change."
The six Australian tourists were trapped for 36 hours by a blizzard which triggered avalanches and threatened to sweep them away.
They had no guide, avalanche beacons or probes, snow shoes or skis and only one shovel between them.
"They are extremely lucky to be alive in the circumstances, the chances of the rescue party finding six corpses were at least as high as finding six live people."
Mountain Safety Council avalanche programme manager Steve Schreiber said the tourists were foolish and needlessly endangered the lives of their rescuers.
"The weather we've had is just diabolical," he said. "They were asking for trouble."
Mountaineers needed to take more responsibility for their own safety instead of expecting to be bailed out, he said.
Group member David Freeland, 55, from the Sydney suburb of Mosman, rejected criticisms of his group's expedition, saying it was a good time of year to head into Mt Cook as it was "not crowded with other people".
"Most of what happened was fantastic," Mr Freeland said.
"Just the last couple of days, sitting around in a tent, watching helicopters go in the wrong direction, looking for us - not what I went there hoping for."
"You can get weather like that in summer, you just get more of it in winter," he said.
"It was a good time of year for us to go up there ... and it's not crowded with other people."
He said their ordeal was a "luck of the draw" and "there's no such thing as safe mountaineering".
In the second incident of the weekend, three men were caught in an avalanche on Temple Peak, near Glenorchy, Otago.
A man in his mid-30s was buried under about 2m of snow after the party was struck by an avalanche at 3.50pm yesterday.
The trio was airlifted from the peak and taken to Lakes District Hospital at Queenstown.
The man buried in the snow was last night in a satisfactory condition with suspected hypothermia.
The group had defied safety warnings and risked both their own lives and those of rescuers, say police.
The New Zealand Mountain Safety Council's website, avalanche.net.nz, reported the risk of avalanches in the area as "considerable" and said that "human-triggered" avalanches were probable.
Harris Mountain Heli-Ski snow safety officer Chris Cochrane said the avalanche risk had increased in the past week.
Because of this, flights to very steep runs were cancelled.
Mr Schreiber said people should stay off steep terrain - anything above 30 degrees in angle - in the current mountain conditions.
- NZPA
