KEY POINTS:
The stormbound Japanese climbers trapped on New Zealand's "highest mile" are lucky to at least have the shelter of a sturdy tent, says another mountaineer who was stranded on Aoraki/Mt Cook.
Alpine Club president Phil Doole and Mark Inglis both lost their lower legs to frostbite after spending nearly a fortnight shivering in a wind-blown ice tunnel on Aoraki/Mt Cook's summit ridge in 1982.
"If the tent is intact, then I would say that having a tent would be infinitely better than what we had because it blocks the wind," Mr Doole, a Nelson resource management consultant, said yesterday.
"I think the main issue will be whether they are able to keep warm, whether they have got some form of sleeping bags with them."
The Japanese climbers, Kiyoshi Ikenouchi, a 49-year-old guide, and Hideaki Nara, 51, both from Tokyo, were due back at Mt Cook Village on Saturday.
Their plan was to visit Gardiner and Empress Huts, on the Hooker Glacier side of the Mt Cook Range, traverse New Zealand's tallest mountain, stay overnight near the Summit Rocks, then descend to the village.
They were last seen climbing on Friday on an area below Porter Col, the low point between Aoraki/Mt Cook's Low and Middle Peaks.
Their red tent is pitched above 3700m in the bergschrund - a gap in the cover of snow and ice - below Middle Peak.
On Wednesday, a helicopter dropped a pack of supplies, including a radio, stove, fuel, food, clothes, sleeping bags, insulation mats and waterproof sleeping-bag covers.
Yesterday, rescuers were again waiting for a break in the storm lashing the national park before they could launch a helicopter for another reconnaissance flight. Winds of up to 130km/h at 3000m yesterday are forecast to ease to 55km/h by tonight with fine periods; further improvement is predicted tomorrow.
Conservation Department spokeswoman Shirley Slatter said it was unlikely the helicopter would take off last night; today was more likely.
Radio contact has not been established. The radio may have broken in the bag-drop from the helicopter, the tent site may be in an area of bad reception, or the climbers may not have noticed the bag, which landed right by their tent, because of the noise of the violent flapping of the tent in the gale.
One of the climbers previously emerged from the tent and waved at the helicopter.
It is not common to carry a tent on an ascent of Aoraki/Mt Cook, but the fact that the Japanese pair intended to traverse the mountain suggests they may have also taken sleeping bags and other survival gear.
Mr Doole said the iced-over crevasse or bergschrund they sheltered in near Porter Col was open at either end. "We had a tunnel with wind racing through it, which kept the temperatures really low."
- NZPA reported that Mr Ikenouchi climbed Mt Aspiring in 2001 and three years later was part of the rescue team that helped when two Japanese climbers were hit by an avalanche - one died - on Aoraki/Mt Cook's Zurbriggen Ridge.
