Trampers may have been exposed to the elements for two nights

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Two trampers found dead on a track in the Tararua Forest Park may have been out in the elements for two nights.

The bodies of the men, both foreign nationals aged 39 and 32, were found in the park on Monday morning.

One tramper was found by a member of the public about 10.30am, and Search and Rescue located the second body about 1pm, not far away.

Search and Rescue Operations manager Murray Johnston said the pair were found close to Alpha Peak.

Wairarapa Area Commander Inspector Donna Howard said the pair were headed on an overnight tramp to Alpha Hut from the Waiohine Gorge campsite on Saturday morning, but there was no evidence they made it there.

It's understood the men had planned to leave Waiohine Gorge campsite on Saturday morning, making their way up to Neill Ridge and via the Dress Circle Track to stay overnight at Alpha Hut.

The pair may have been exposed to the elements from the time they left camp on Saturday, to the time their bodies were discovered. They were found within a kilometre of the hut.

They were reported overdue by a family member about 7pm on Sunday.

The two men were foreign nationals, but had been living in New Zealand for some time, police said.

Search and Rescue staff told police evidence suggested they may have died of hypothermia.

'There was nothing to suggest anything else,' Howard said.

Johnston said if the pair had taken the ridgetop route, they may have been exposed to cold and windy conditions on Saturday evening for several hours.

According to a Greater Wellington environmental recording station nearby at Tauherenikau, wind speeds reached up to 100 kilometres per hour on Saturday evening and temperatures dropped down to 4 degrees in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Search and Rescue began their search for the pair about 8.30am on Monday.

Johnston said police were talking to other trampers using that area of the forest park at the time in the hope it would give investigators a better sense of what happened.

'There were at least four or five other people moving around those same tracks in those same areas on the same day. You can tell that by the people that have filled in log books,' he said.

South Wairarapa Tramping Club president Ed Cooke said there were a few routes the trampers could have taken to get to Alpha Hut, but all tracks were well marked and easy to follow.

'You shouldn't get lost on them.'

One route could have seen the pair cross a knee-high river, leaving them with wet feet, Cooke said.

'So your feet are wet for the rest of the tramp.

'But [your] feet warm up as you're walking though.'

There were some steep areas of the tramp, but Cooke said most people would only take about five to six hours to reach the hut.

'An average sort of reasonably fit person would have no trouble.'

Having tramped in that area himself, Cooke said there were no cliffs he believed the pair could have fallen off.

The incident had left the tramping community puzzled, he said.

'The tramping fraternity are finding it a bit of a mystery.'

Police are not treating the deaths as a suicide, but were working to establish what tramping experience the pair had and were investigating on behalf of the coroner.

Family members of one of the trampers was travelling down from Auckland on Tuesday, and the bodies were expected to be taken to Palmerston North for a post mortem, Howard said.

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