Glacier victim's horror birthday fall

Fiordland National Park. Photo / Dean Purcell

A Sydney woman who died after falling more than 400 metres from a slippery ice face in the Fiordland National Park yesterday had planned to celebrate her 39th birthday with her husband when she emerged from the bush.

Instead, her husband was comforted by a helicopter pilot who broke the news that she died in the fall from a glacier the pair were climbing.

"It was just awful, as you could imagine, telling him that his wife was gone, especially when he thought she was going to be okay," said Southern Lakes Helicopters' pilot, Lloyd Matheson, who was first on the scene.

Melissa Therese Martin, 38, from Sydney Australia, and her husband had been climbing in the Karako Glacier area, near Lake Adelaide, making their way down from a 4000m peak when she fell about 1.30pm.

It is believed the woman, who was 400 metres further up the glacier, lost her footing.

"She fell down the ice face and collided with him and then they fell another 40 metres together," Mr Matheson told AAP.

"They were both knocked unconscious by it all and when he came to he saw her in a small crevasse and raised the alarm."

The beacon the couple were carrying was incompatible with the New Zealand terrain. The pilot and paramedic team were alerted to the general location but it took almost an hour of following the man's echoing voice before they found the pair.

"It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, which was very unfortunate given the situation," the pilot said.

The paramedic was winched to the woman's aid while the man was flown back to the couple's camp site.

"The news, when it came, wasn't good," the former policeman said.

Mr Matheson said the man, who suffered facial cuts but not life-threatening injuries, was "totally devastated" to hear his wife of 15 years had died in the accident.

"You can imagine. He told me they had just started a three-year holiday and they'd come over to do this tramp and they were four days in," he said.

"She was just about to celebrate her 39th birthday next week. They were planning on climbing out and going out for a nice tea to celebrate, and then this happens."

The pilot said it appeared the pair had good climbing equipment but questioned why they were hiking on a glacier covered in "incredibly dangerous" rime ice, snow that had thawed and then frozen over.

"They had crampons and everything but that ice at this time of year is just treacherous. It's like a sheet of glass," Mr Matheson said.

"It's quite a strange place to be and, to be honest, I don't know why they chose it.

"There were other people around but they were climbing on the rock terrain. Why pick the ice?"

The area has claimed several lives in recent years, including that of Tasmanian father-of-four James Poland, who fell 100 metres to his death in January a few kilometres from where yesterday's accident happened.

"It really is severe mountain terrain and climbers here must know it."

The man was taken to Te Anau medical centre for treatment.

Te Anau police sergeant Tod Hollebon said the woman's name would not be released until family members had been notified.

- AAP