A helicopter airlifts out an injured skier caught in an avalanche on the Gamack Range. Photo / Supplied
A helicopter airlifts out an injured skier caught in an avalanche on the Gamack Range. Photo / Supplied
A Canterbury backcountry skier is recovering in Christchurch Hospital with a broken leg after he was caught in an avalanche on the Gamack Range, 20km east of Aoraki/Mt Cook Village.
The accident occurred at 11.20am on Thursday, in the Canterbury high country at an altitude of 2000m, when one skier in the party of seven, triggered an avalanche and was swept 200m downhill.
The ski group set off their emergency locator beacons and a mountain alpine rescue team boarded a helicopter and flew to the remote site as a storm front quickly moved in from the west.
Rescuers tend to the injured skier caught in an avalanche and swept 200m down a backcountry slope on the Gamack Range, Canterbury. Photo / Supplied
The Gamack mountains are a popular back country ski touring area with good powder skiing terrain.
Jim Young, Jonathon Gillan and Mark Evans, of the Aoraki/Mount Cook Alpine Rescue Team, were dropped at the remote O'Leary Hut, at 1900m, where the ski party had been staying, and half a kilometre from the accident site.
They observed a lot of natural avalanche activity when they arrived on site and the weather was deteriorating.
Young and Helicopter Line pilot Troy Feck did a recce to see if they could locate the skiers from the air but "the weather proved to be too challenging so we returned back to the hut".
A member of the group had skied over to the hut and took the three-man rescue team up to the accident site. They had to walk up the mountain on their skis, "skinning" their way to the injured skier.
"He was coherent and chatting away, and in really good spirits given his predicament", said Young.
The skier had been skiing a slope above the hut and triggered a small slab avalanche which carried him 200m down the mountain. Luckily he was the only person caught in the avalanche but his leg was seriously injured.
Weather conditions on the helicopter flight to rescue the skier caught in an avalanche on the Gamack Range, Canterbury. Photo / Supplied
"He wasn't buried", Young said, "he was left on the surface of the snow."
"The ski group had done an excellent job packaging and treating him the best they could. kept him warm and stable waiting for us to arrive."
The ski party and rescue team dragged the injured patient on a modified stretcher back to the hut, where they had been staying overnight, wary of a looming weather system approaching.
"It would not have been ideal for the patient to remain in the hut overnight."
Fortunately, a 20-minute weather window appeared in the storm, enough time for an extraction - a "snatch and grab".
The helicopter had stayed in the valley floor below and flew up to take the patient out to the Twizel Medical Centre - "an excellent result".
A high avalanche danger warning had been issued on Wednesday night of heavy rain with snow in upper elevations. Backcountry travel was not recommended with natural avalanches likely and human-triggered avalanches also very likely.
