Missing hiker rescued

A hiker missing on a remote mountain overnight has been rescued by a Marlborough search and rescue team.

LandSAR Marlborough were contacted by police to carry out a rescue operation for an overdue hiker on Mt Stokes in the outer Marlborough Sounds.

The woman, who had become separated from her partner, was rescued in the early hours of Thursday morning, cold and hungry but not hurt.

LandSAR chairperson Kerry Lammas says the steep terrain made the rescue mission challenging.

Exhausted search crews made it home about 17 hours after receiving the call out at 8.09pm on Wednesday.

“The terrain where she was located was quite a steep ravine, surrounded by bluffs so reaching her meant one way in and one way out.

“We had to deal with bluffs and crevices in the dark,” he says.

Four teams were deployed, making a two-and-a-half-hour journey by road to where the young hiker had become lost making her descent. Her worried partner had called police.

Two field teams, a police dog team and one person to contain people leaving and heading into the area immediately began to search.

Seven members back at base oversaw the bigger picture, creating ‘taskings’ (jobs) for the field teams.

The team constantly communicate with the field team, keeping an eye on their well-being. “There’s more to the team than just the field team,” Kerry explains.

The team used a sound light line to narrow the search field.

“We move, stop and turn our lights off, use our whistle or call out, listen, then turn our lights on and then move on.

“We turn our lights off because the missing person may respond with their lights, it may only be a cell phone light, but we can pick this up in the dark.

“After five hours they finally had a reply. Teams were then able to split and triangulate to make their way to reach her,” Kerry says. “We heard her yell out from a distance, she was about 500m from the summit.

“The terrain made this a time consuming and energy sapping exercise finally reaching her at 06:59 the following morning.” After warming up the missing hiker with food and a hot drink, the team walked her out to be reunited with her partner.