Overseas climber rescued on treacherous Brewster Glacier hike
A 30-year-old overseas visitor, yet another to be lured by the beautifully stunning but highly dangerous Brewster Glacier, was fortunate to be rescued before nightfall after falling 5m to 6m in steep and rocky terrain in Mount Aspiring National Park on Saturday afternoon.
A skilled team of Wanaka Alpine Cliff rescuers had to be flown in to extract the man after he fell just before 3.30pm, suffering two broken ankles and head injuries. An Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter with a paramedic on board was unable to reach him due to low cloud, so the Rescue Coordination Centre called in the Wanaka experts with Aspiring Helicopters to retrieve him at 5.30pm.
Wanaka SAR Group Chair Raewyn Calhaem says two rescuers went in on foot, prepared to overnight with the patient, but the cloud started to break after they set off, so the other two Wanaka rescuers were flown in. “It was really tricky terrain – rocky and very slippery and our guys used all the right gear.” The man couldn’t be rescued on foot.
Fortunately, there were plenty of other hikers in the area, but it was 7.30pm by the time he was finally lifted out. Some bystanders had loaned him a personal locator beacon to alert emergency services and wrapped him warmly while his rescuers arrived, Calhaem says.
An RCC spokesperson says the rescue took five hours from that beacon activation, stressing the importance of carrying one.
The man is believed to have fallen near where a young French woman died tragically after falling only several metres around 7pm on 20 February. Her death is being investigated by the Coroner.
It’s understood there have been more than half a dozen helicopter rescues to the Brewster Track this summer alone.
Alpine experts around the country are very concerned about the extent to which young Instagrammers, usually inexperienced, are being lured past Brewster Hut to walk to the glacier. There’s no marked track through highly dangerous terrain.
“This is a high consequence area so if it goes wrong, it really does go wrong,” Calhaem says.
Her alpine team had been called in to 12 rescues to retrieve injured patients from various popular climbs and hikes in the Wanaka region since the beginning of January.
Just a day ago a popular Australian Instagram influencer posted stunning photos of herself outside and inside Brewster Glacier under its ice fall. However, she did warn her 414,000 followers that it was an “unmarked high-risk trail, following a steep ridgeline with significant drop offs which should only be attempted by those with experience in alpine environments”. Almost 100 comments sent a flurry of wowed excitement back from various nationalities, most eager to try it.
Wakatipu Alpine Cliff Rescue Team coordinator Russ Tilsley says the increase in social media popularity in beautiful, remote locations like Brewster Glacier is extremely concerning.
“It’s a problem throughout NZ. People are pushing into these stunning remote locations that were once only the habitat of expert climbers,” he says. “They’ve created this thing in search of the best photos, but glaciers collapse and cave in all the time. They’re full of crevasses and these people aren’t aware of the inherent danger.
“This is the wilderness and you’re at 1800metres. It’s just stunning but they go up there in their day gear and don’t realise the NZ mountains can be mid-20s then in hours snowy and blowing 100km per hour.”
Mueller and Sefton Bivvy huts at Mount Cook are attracting similar social media interest and large numbers, as is Roy’s Peak, near Wanaka, and Ben Lomond locally. “We now have hundreds of people a day climbing Ben Lomond,” he says.
Police, alpine rescuers and the Mountain Safety Council have been warning of the dangers around Brewster Glacier for nearly a year.
A joint interagency taskforce is researching why there’s been such a huge spike in interest in Brewster Glacier and other increasingly popular areas.
“Brewster has become an emerging issue,” Council Senior Partnerships and Insights Advisor Bevan Smith says. “There’s no identified safe route beyond Brewster Hut. You need skills and equipment to pick a safe route, and to know how to read the weather conditions,” he says. “If cloud descends you can be navigating your way back to the hut across steep, exposed terrain in a whiteout.”
DOC has erected new warning signs outside Brewster Hut within the past month.
