Rare avalanches in Tararuas

Wairarapa News

AVALANCHE MATERIAL Carterton mountaineer Vicky Bullmore and her dog Sushi perched on a potentially dangerous snow cornice on the Mt Holdsworth Ridge

Wairarapa News

AVALANCHE MATERIAL: Carterton mountainteer Vicky Bullmore and her dog Sushi perched on a potentially dangerous snow cornice on a Mount Holdsworth ridge.

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When climbers Joe Nawalaniec and Vicky Bullmore were posing for a photo on the edge of a fresh snow cornice on Holdsworth Ridge they had no idea of the potential dangers.

"Not thinking for a minute that it would avalanche. The last thing I ever thought about would be an avalanche in the Tararuas," says Joe.

He has been climbing in these ranges for thirty years and has never heard of there being avalanches, so he was shocked to see the wake of one that had occurred recently.

"If I was somewhere  in the main divide or the Alps I would've thought it was dangerous," says Joe.

It wasn't until they descended in to the valley they noticed evidence of a moderate avalanche as they crossed over it.

"I noticed how big and blocky and chunky the snow was and I said to Vicky, "I think we're on an avalanche"," says Joe.

He estimated the fallen avalanche debris field was about 20 metres wide, 60 metres long and about 1.5 metres deep.

"It was very fresh debris that had avalanched off the summit of Mount Holdsworth in the lee of the big storm," he says.

Avalanches like this are caused by a zbuild up of snow that has been blown over the top of the ridge. It forms a thick wave-like mass of snow called a cornice on the leeward edge and when this gets heavy enough it can fall away under its own weight and career down the side of the mountain in a flood of snow sweeping away everything in its path. Usually there is not enough snow or the right conditions for that to occur in the Tararuas.

The Department of Conservation have issued an avalanche  warning on their website and to relevant organisations. DOC area manager Chris Lester said the warning states that there is an unusual amount of snow on the tops and conditions are such that only very experienced climbers should be in the area at the moment because of the avalanche risk and the difficulties for people trying to move around.

"It's not pleasant and it's not easy work. If you don't know what you're doing that can be very dangerous," he says.

No one in the Wairarapa DOC office has heard of avalanches in this region, according to Mr Lester.

Vicky and Joe walked up to the top of Mount Holdsworth from the carpark early on Sunday morning. By the time they got to Powell Hut they were in deep snow. As they are extremely experienced in high alpine conditions they had no qualms about pressing on to the summit and across the ridge. In places they had to crawl and 'swim' through snow that was above waste deep.

Their dog Sushi was getting a bit cold in the sub zero temperatures at the summit so they made their way across the tops towards the East Holdsworth Track. From here they descended down to Atiwhakatu Hut and back towards the base. The round trip over the top and back down to the Holdsworth carpark normally takes around six hours but this time it took them over nine hours.

Experienced Wairarapa mountaineer John Rhodes says with the large snowfalls that the region has had there is bound to be the possibility of avalanches but nothing of the scale that climbers might see in the Southern Alps. He said back in 1999 they had a similar situation with deep snow covers and large cornices on the ridges.