Dawn search for climbers, hunter

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 1

Dawn search for climbers, hunter

PA Timaru Bad weather yesterday hampered the search for two young climbers in the Mount Graham area of Mount Cook National Park. Craig Hamilton, aged 19, and Ronald Brent Davis, aged 24, both of Christchurch, have been in the park for four nights. Weather permitting, the search was to have resumed at dawn today. A rope reported to be hanging from the top of 3281 m Mount Graham, an area where the men could be, will be checked urgently.

A park search and rescue team intends to land on the mountain to “dig out the end of the rope.”

All aerial searches of the Mount Graham area had to be suspended on Tuesday because of poor weather.

The climbers were well prepared when they entered the area last Friday. They took equipment that would allow them to stay overnight.

“We have no reason to believe that anything bad has happened but they have been out for four nights, and the fact that we are now looking for them means we

are concerned,” said a park spokesman yesterday. Another air search will begin this morning for a Twizel man overdue on a hunting trip in the Landsborough Valley. Tony Ormsby, an experienced hunter and tramper, failed to arrive at a meeting place in the Hunter Valley after crossing the Broderick Pass on the eastern side of the Landsborough. Mr Ormsby had been flown into the Creswick Hut area of the valley on August 17 and was expected out last Monday.