Trampers overdue in rain and cold with little food

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33512, 18 April 1974, Page 1

Trampers overdue in rain and cold with little food

A big search will start this morning for two trampers overdue in the Arthur s Pass area.

The search will involve about 27 policemen, park rangers, and civilians. A helicopter from Wigram will be kept on stand-by in case the trampers are found and need to be flown out.

Mr Neil Henry Duff, aged 58, a builder, of Head Street, Sumner, and Mrs Elizabeth Dorothy Dixon, aged 47, a nursing sister, of Wigan Street, Sumner, left Christchurch on Friday intending to tramp up the Hawdon River Valley and over the Trudge Col, a height of 5000 ft.

They have not been seen since. ’ There is no sign in e huts in the area to indicate S whether the couple stayed in them, and the weather has j ’been bad. 1

The couple took only enough food to last until Sunday. Two search parties comprising policemen and members of the Christchurch

Tramping Club arrived at Arthur’s Pass about midnight on Tuesday. One went into the Poulter River valley and the other was held in reserve at park headquarters.

Mr P. Croft, the chief park ranger, said last evening that the search for the missing couple had been narrowed to an area between the Hawdon and Poulter Rivers.

He expressed some concern for the welfare of Mr Duff and Mrs Dixon because it was their sixth night out without shelter, it was still raining and cold, and there was snow down, to 4000 ft.

“If there is no sign of them after another day we will have to cast our net wider,” he said. “It appears they have been > several nights without shelter, in rain and snow. We are definitely concerned for their safety.”

Mr Croft said last evening that all overdue trampers in the Arthur’s Pass area, except for Mr Duff and Mrs Dixon, had now been accounted for. Four overdue A party of four trampers is overdue in the Lewis Pass. They were last seen at the Pall Stream forestry hut about midday on Sunday and were due out on Monday evening. Their exact location now is not known.

The party includes a young man and woman from Redcliffs, another young man from Sumner and an-

other man. aged about 40, believed . to be an experienced tramper, of unknown address.

Two missing

Two other missing men were due out of the Rakaia Gorge on a tramping trip on Monday. One is known to have a tent and a sleeping bag. Safe but hungry Five trampers missing in the Cannibal Gorge area of the Lewis Pass were found safe but hungry yesterday afternoon. They left their cars at the Ada Pass track on Friday and intended to spend one night in a hut and another in the open before coming out on Sunday. Searchers found them about 3 p.m. and a helicopter later flew them back to their cars. All were well although they had run out of food. Rangers not told Earlier in the day it was thought that there were more people overdue in the Arthur’s Pass National Park but searchers found them safe and well. One party, from Canterbury University, had left the area on Tuesday and had returned to Christchurch without telling the rangers.

Two other missing parties were found by search parties and a scout group which asked for help because they were cold and wet after crossing rivers was guided out. Tramped out By nightfall last evening another five shooters and climbers who had been stranded in the headwaters of the Clyde and Havelock Rivers, major tributaries of the Rangitata, had tramped out to Erewhon Station, having managed to ford the rivers which had blocked them during Easter weekend.

Only two shooters, both younger members of the Deerstalkers’ Association, remained in the valley last evening. They accompanied other members to a hut lower down the valley, eight miles above Erewhon, yesterday, but were left in the safety of this shelter for the night because the river was considered too high for them to attempt the necessary fordings. They will be accompanied out today.