A tramper with suspected hypothermia has been successfully airlifted from a ridge on the Lewis Pass this morning after being stranded there yesterday afternoon.
The Garden City Summit Rescue helicopter from Nelson reached the 22-year-old woman just before 7am after bad weather prevented air access yesterday, the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) says.
The woman was being taken to hospital in a moderate condition.
She'd been part of a group of seven on the St James walkway, just south of the Nelson Lakes National Park.
The group set off a distress beacon around 2.25pm yesterday.
They had also been in contact via Canterbury Mountain Radio, and advised that one of their party, a 22-year-old woman, had suspected hypothermia.
Three of the group, including the patient, spent the night in a tent on a ridge above the walkway's Cannibal Gorge Hut. The other four spent the night in the hut.
