The New Zealand Mountain Guides Association (NZMGA) says a guide who died on Aoraki Mount Cook was a careful diligent guide with experience climbing the mountain.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday Police recovered the bodies of an internationally-recognised mountain guide and their client who died in an overnight fall on Aoraki Mount Cook .<\/p>\n
The climbers were in a party of four, roped together in pairs, climbing from Empress Hut to the summit when the two fell from the mountain’s west ridge.<\/p>\n
NZMGA president Anna Keeling said the guide, who was a member of their organisation, was “careful and diligent”, and had been guiding for at least 12 years.<\/p>\n
She said the man was married with two young children.<\/p>\n
Keeling said he was an internationally certified mountain guide, originally from overseas, but had been based in New Zealand for a decade.<\/p>\n
She said the guide last climbed Aoraki Mount Cook just two weeks ago, “via the quite difficult East Ridge”.<\/p>\n
“He was very qualified to be up there and knew the route well and knew the conditions well this year. So it’s very shocking.”<\/p>\n
Keeling said the conditions on Aoraki Mount Cook at the moment were favourable after all the snow in the past couple of months, but that there was always some risk.<\/p>\n
“We make our clients aware also that we are risk managers, that we cannot entirely eliminate risk.”<\/p>\n
“But they’re willing to accept it for the opportunity for a really tremendous experience, especially on New Zealand’s highest peaks.”<\/p>\n
“Being up on the summit ridge of Aoraki is an incredible experience with amazing views, […] it’s actually indescribable how amazing it is up there. But that reward comes with risk.”<\/p>\n
She said Aoraki Mount Cook was considered a riskier mountain to guide.<\/p>\n
“I have guided Aoraki a number of times. I would say it’s the hardest thing we do as New Zealand guides.”<\/p>\n
Keeling said it was a difficult, arduous and incredibly long climb, and also involved climbing in the dark.<\/p>\n
“Climbing at night is typical because it typically freezes at night and we like to travel on our crampons in firm snow rather than really punchy, soft snow,” she said.<\/p>\n
Keeling said where the climbers fell was a very exposed spot with “no margin for error.”<\/p>\n
She said the New Zealand mountain guiding community was like a family and the guide’s death was a huge blow to the community.<\/p>\n
She said their hearts also went out to the guide’s family and friends.<\/p>\n
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The New Zealand Mountain Guides Association (NZMGA) says a guide who died on Aoraki Mount Cook was a careful diligent guide with experience climbing the mountain. On Tuesday Police recovered the bodies of an internationally-recognised mountain guide and their client who died in an overnight fall on Aoraki Mount Cook . The climbers were in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15810,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15808\/revisions\/15810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}