Light blizzard during survival training

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33577, 4 July 1974, Page 14

Light blizzard during survival training

(From Our Own Reporter)

TIMARU, July 3.

Light blizzard conditions prevailed in the Mount Cook National Park today during a survival-training course for Royal New Zealand Air Force men.

Visibility was limited, and there was a southerly wind of from 15 to 20 knots. A, group set out on foot from the Ball Hut, at an altitude of 4000 ft, to construct snow caves at the foot of the Caroline Face of Mount Cook, where it was intended to spend the night. The party yesterday was on the Tasman Glacier learning how to cut steps in ice, climb ice walls, and rescue persons from crevasses. A second party was taken by R.N.Z.A.F. Iroquois helicopter to Fergie’s Knob (6000 ft behind the Ball Hut, where they had instruction in snow work and the use of ropes. Subsequently, the two parties were switched over by helicopter. In the afternoon, the men abseiled down a rock face near the Ball Hut.

The present group will move out tomorrow, when a second-group will begin similar training. A final team will start on July 7. All told, 60 men will be involved in the exercise.

Squadron Leader J. M. Terry, who is in charge of the present group, said that the benefits from the exercise were “incalculable," so far as flying in New Zealand and on operations to the Antarctic was concerned. “In New Zealand, we can

be faced with difficult survival situations — survival in the sea, survival in the bush on the West Coast, and survival in snow,” he said.