A woman who died after falling from Piha's Lion Rock was climbing the landmark in the dark while wearing high-heeled boots.

Police said they located the body of the 36-year-old woman at 2.45am yesterday.

A website run by local woman Bobbie Carroll said a group of four young women "ventured up the rock in the dark".

"One turned back to go back to the party's car, but when her friends returned there was no sign of her.

"Her friends searched for her and found her body where she had fallen from the rock."

Police said they were not treating the death as suspicious.

Alcohol and drugs were believed to be a factor in her death.

The dead woman would not be named until next of kin in Australia were advised.

It was understood the women were not locals and had driven to Piha from Auckland.

Veteran Piha lifeguard Jonathan Webber attended the scene after he was called to bring a quad bike to provide lighting.

He said the woman had fallen from the northern side of the rock on to sand.

However, it was hard to know where she had fallen.

Efforts to resuscitate the woman had ended by the time he arrived.

Some locals had said the victim was wearing stiletto heels, but Webber said he saw a calf-length heeled boot lying in the sand.

He saw one other woman who was being comforted but did not see any others from the group.

Webber said climbing Lion Rock was a "quintessential Auckland thing to do", but doing it at night was "certainly not what I consider sensible".

Webber, a trauma and resuscitation nurse, was first on the scene the night in 2010 when two men fell more than 60m from the rock.

They survived but were critically hurt.

One had serious chest injuries and a large open head wound. The other had a badly broken leg.

Webber said the two had tumbled for a lot of their fall, but it "just comes down to luck".

"The key message is: ‘enjoy the place, go up and see it, but don't do it at night."'

One local who wanted to remain anonymous said she did not like the area being treated as a party spot by outsiders.

Sooner or later a death was bound to happen, she said.

By the afternoon the beach was quiet and many visitors were unaware of the morning's events.

- © Fairfax NZ News