Greater risk for tourist climbers unsubstantiated

Press, 22 January 1988, Page 3

Greater risk for tourist climbers unsubstantiated

PA Auckland The Mountain Safety Council says there is nothing to substantiate suggestions that tourist climbers are, as a group, at risk. The council’s comments come in the wake of the death of an Australian boy, aged 13, on Mount Egmont and an English tourist, aged 37, drowned near Dunedin on Tuesday during a mountain safety course. Three other tourists, two Americans and a Briton, have been missing on Mount Cook for four

days and are now presumed to be dead. - Mr Clive Roberts, aged 45, the dead Australian teenager’s uncle who was also trapped on Mount Egmont and admitted to hospital, was in a satisfactory condition and was expected to be discharged late yesterday evening. In 1984, the then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, ordered seven deaf mute Japanese climbers off Mount Cook because of concern for their safety and threatened to bring in mountain climbing regula-

tions if his decision was challenged. The Mountain Safety Council’s national field officer, Mr Chris Knol, said that despite the black week for overseas climbers, New Zealanders were statistically far more prone to accidents or to going missing on the country’s peaks. “Tourists who come here to climb are generally better prepared than many New Zealanders, especially those going out for a day or a day-and-a-half-long tramps.”