A Fiordland Mis-Adventure

Fresh on the back of completing our run of the Hump Ridge Track, a 60km Great Walk located in South Fiordland National Park, Max and I were pretty keen to maximise our good weather window. We decided to head into the giant mountains along the Milford Road in pursuit of another mission. We planned to trad climb the 400m North Buttress Direct route on Sabre Peak, hiking in, bivvying, climbing, bivvying and hiking out over 3 days from Mon to Wed.

In a bit more detail, the first day entails a steep hike in from Homer Hut car park to the Gertrude Saddle, climbing 400m higher up to traverse Barrier Knob, then down a ridgeline to Gifford Crack, descending into the Lake Adelaide side of the valley and making our way to sleep at the beautiful Phil’s Bivvy. A huge rock cave with multiple sleeping ledges or dried tussocks and plenty of shelter from the elements. Day 2 would be the climbing day with an early start to cover the 1.5km and 500m vert up along a steep tussock ledge known as the Yak Pastures, bringing us to the base of the route and roughly 10 pitches of rock climbing. The route started as grade 17-19, very low-down, easing to 13-14 as you get closer to topping out on the gigantic sea of rock. Bivvying on the summit after the rock climb. Day 3, carefully descending the technical and exposed ridge and abseiling to Marian Peak and on to Barrier Peak before returning to Gertrude Saddle and Homer Hut. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite to be the case…

The view from Barrier Knob towards Adelaide Saddle. Lake Adelaide on the right.

6/4/26. Sitting by the shorelines of Lake Te Anau, having just cooked a hearty fry-up for breakfast and re-warming after a morning swim, we began packing our bags of kit for the next few days. All the usual climbing hardware, rope-check, quickdraws- check, slings and crabs- check, nuts and cams- check, personal climbing kit, harness and helmet- check. Bivvy equipment- sleeping pad, sleeping bag, gas cooker and pots, headtorch, spare batteries- all check. Food and drink, sufficient energy bars, snacks, electrolytes, dehydrated meals for the 3 days/2 nights, plus 1 extra day of spare food- check. Safety equipment, the non-negotiable stuff that comes with you on every trip- PLB (Personal Locator Beacon), first aid kit, emergency bivvy bag, device power banks, hat, gloves, buff and spare layers- check. All neatly organised into my bag, with a bit of effort, I heave it onto my back. It’s as if by magic, as soon as the waist and shoulder straps are secured, the weight disappears, aided by my walking poles! We’re good to go.

A short drive along the Milford Road and we find ourselves enjoying lunch in the sunshine at the Homer Hut carpark, getting ready to begin. A final check of the weather confirms a dry Monday and Tuesday with showers beginning Wednesday afternoon, but as we’d planned to be almost off by this time and were expecting it, we were happy to set off on the trip.

On achy legs, we marched up to the saddle, crossing the incredible slabs of the Gertrude Valley and after about 75 mins were rewarded with the lovely view over the Gulliver River. Quick refuel and refill, then another climb, traverse and descent got us on a ridgeline heading to Gifford’s Crack. From here, downclimb across tussock and rocky stream gullies, avoiding steep drop-offs. As it was nice and dry, we were easily able to navigate this and finally walked the final few kilometres to reach Phil’s Bivvy for the night. Quickly setting up our cosy sleeping arrangements, cooker on, I enjoyed a nice warm backcountry meal whilst racking up my harness ready for tomorrow’s big day. Sleep at 8 pm with a 5:30 am alarm set to maximise the day.

7/4/26 The alarm rolls around, so Max and I cook our breakfast, pack down camp and set off on foot up the brutal terrain up to the base of the climb. Initially, by headtorch, we had to cross a vegetated boulder field before picking our lines up the steep Yak Pastures. As the daylight appeared, we saw a giant Sabre Peak looming above us in the clouds. With limited info on the walk-in and exact route/start point of the climb, it took us a couple of hours to find our way, but eventually we reached a long continuous crack rising a few pitches off the ground, matching the description of that in our guidebook. Harness and shoes on, rope secured and climbing pack with all our equipment in, I set off on lead. I’d be leading every pitch as I have more experience, but it’s an easy enough exchange of kit and a quick back flake of the rope at each belay I build in between pitches. Mostly, I was able to sling a large boulder/chock to save us some time.

Initially, the first few pitches off the deck were pretty on, and I must admit I wandered around on some sections before downclimbing and re-climbing up a better line. After a couple of hours of climbing, our visibility had reduced, and it began to drizzle; the rock was pretty cold, too. We were both past the hard bit of the climb and knew the grade 13-14 ahead would give us much easier terrain, well within both our comfort zones and thought the drizzle might pass. It did not pass, turning to heavy rain and increased wind. Not ideal, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was trad climbing back on the side of Scafell Buttress in the Lake District, back in England! The rain began pouring down the route, largely slowing my progress, as sometimes I found myself jamming into a crack with water pouring down my sleeves or cascading down onto my precarious smears. A proper close cloud meant I could only see a rope pitch above me, so we decided to do slightly smaller pitches to keep within view of each other. Hands were pretty damn numb and cut by this point for both of us, and we’d been on the route much longer than we’d anticipated due to the weather coming in what seemed like a whole day early. Soaked to the bone! As dusk approached, we neared the top of the route, topping out right by a small rock bivvy. We decided to shelter here for the night as it would be safer not to climb in the dark. We laid down our tarp, roll mats, climbed into our sleeping bags and wrapped the emergency bivvy over us, settling down for a wet and windy night. Thankful for this piece of equipment as it kept us much warmer throughout the night and protected us from the elements.

8/4/26 After a wet and windy night, the light drew across the sky, but it was still a super cold morning. It took some doing to get out of the warmth of our shelter, but we re-equipped our harnesses and sorted the rope before continuing to the actual summit of Sabre Peak, at 2162m. I was relieved to reach the summit, as this meant we could get off the mountain from these worsening conditions! The weather remained cold, drizzling with moderate winds, and very poor visibility. Slowly, we carefully descended the ridge line towards Marian Peak. Soaked to the bone by this point from being exposed for so long, we reached the first abseil station. Dropping down to the right-hand side of a rocky notch. We had a few options at this point, but as we were so cold and the rock was wet, we felt going up and over would be too risky, which meant a series of abseils would drop us down about 180m, then we would contour the last 80m distance to the saddle onwards to Marian. I had a 70m single rope and, one after another, Max and I did 3 consecutive raps to reach a large ledge. It was bitterly cold by this point, and the ropes would get tangled with the blowing wind and blocky ledges we passed, which didn’t make for my smoothest retreat. Slow progress with numb, wrinkly, saturated hands, but we remained safe and focused on what we needed to do. After the first 3 abs, we shuffled 20 metres west and began another 3 rappels. I’d been setting up each of the abseils, going first, and I found they led to the next anchor straight away, so after the 6th abseil, when there wasn’t another anchor in sight, we knew next we had to traverse across to the saddle.

By this point, after a few hours abseiling and route finding through the clouds, neither of us could feel our fingers or feet. I actually felt dizzy and unbalanced standing up because I had gotten so cold, and we weren’t sure how much further we could make it. The weather was getting much more serious, and I remember thinking it’s time to make the call. Time to stop and ask for some help from search and rescue teams. We’d be safer staying put until help arrived and getting rescued. Not what we had envisaged before setting off on the rock climb, but at this point, it was our best option. Continuing could have much more serious consequences and a higher likelihood of a slip or fall, especially as the terrain we’d have to contour on was largely wet tussock on a steep gradient with some rocky outcrops. I knew in the dry, and if we were warm, it would be a much different story, and we wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but much better to be cautious. We were also much further away from our intended bivvy spot, which we’d discussed that morning. The area we were in was much less steep than the terrain we’d covered already, and what was ahead of us was a small flat section we could sit down on. I decided to activate my Ocean Signal PLB1 at approx. 4:30 pm, as we still had a couple of hours of daylight, which held the potential for an extraction that night. The bivvy bag provides us shelter once more.

Pulling out the antenna, holding the button until the beacon illuminated a green light, then started to flash, first red, red, red and then a series of green flashes, and back to red. Green, green, green. On it went. I remember being nervous here, just hoping that it was doing its job and sending out that signal. Not even an hour later, we heard the thump of a helicopter approaching, a surge of relief for us both as we thought we were out of there. However, this was not the case, and we weren’t surprised when the helicopter circled past us and disappeared again. A brief moment of hope was slapped with the reality that, of course, the helicopter crew couldn’t get us at that moment in time. It was terrible visibility, windy, and darkness was approaching.

I then felt optimistic as they had received the PLB signal, had located us and had tried to come and get us. We reassured each other, ‘it’s alright, they’ll come back in the morning when it’s lighter, and hopefully this cloud has shifted’. We knew we would be spending the night on our little ledge, so we did our best to hunker down, staying as warm as possible. Throughout all this ordeal, we had our packs on containing the food, layers, climbing kit and bivvy kit I mentioned before. We ended up constructing an exposed, uncomfortable, but practical sleeping arrangement. Using a rope tarp as a groundsheet, roll mats for insulation, climbing into our sleeping bags with hoods up, hats, buffs, layers on and wrapped up under our bivvy bag. Not that we slept amazingly, but we both drifted in and out of sleep, certainly a restless night of huddling together to remain warm. It also snowed, and we emerged to a light dusting over our bags and tarp. Brrr.

Awaiting help here for 38 hours after 6 abseils.

9/4/26 Daylight approached, and in addition to my PLB, at 7 am, 15 hours after I’d activated my PLB, we then used Max’s new iPhone 17’s satellite emergency SOS feature to double up our signal for help. Brilliant bit of technology that can send our messages to the emergency services to his emergency contacts. We were able to get the important message out that we were both alive and uninjured and stranded at our location due to poor weather, and we are remaining put.

I can’t imagine what must have been going through the minds of our families as they learned we had activated a PLB and Emergency SOS before they received any information that we were uninjured. The mind will just go straight to the worst-case scenario in this situation, naturally. What followed was a series of messages that got relayed to the emergency services and Max’s emergency contacts. Max’s brother, Ricky, could see all the messages we were sending, and he got back in contact with the Southland Police Department, who were coordinating the rescue and communicating with both our families to update them. The Southern Lakes Helicopter company run the helis for the Fiordland Search and Rescue, and we received instruction from them to stay put, and that a rescue effort would be made again as soon as the weather improved, as the teams still couldn’t fly in the current conditions. They said we’ll attempt again at 3 pm-6 pm, but will not be setting off to rescue in the dark, and the visibility must improve. We both understood they would not put anyone at any extra risk, so we remained optimistic about getting off that day. Max and I felt better that we knew help was on the way, and we just had to remain as warm as possible for the rest of the day, hoping that the cloud clears.

We had 2 power banks between us and saved all the power from these solely to keep Max’s phone charged, as that was very important for communication. Looking back, the 9 hours that passed during the day seemed to go quickly. We used my cooker to heat our reserve food stores and tried to stay as warm as possible. By 6 pm, there was still no view as it was so cloudy, and despite the awful conditions, the helicopter flew in, but again, it was too dangerous to attempt a rescue. Nevertheless, we were both still ok, just bloody cold!

A reassuring message was received saying that tomorrow morning will provide the perfect weather window for a winch extraction rescue. We had to message at 5 am to give a conditions report so that the heli team would have confirmation from us that it was 100% clear and that they would be there at 7 am. So, as darkness approached for night number two, we just had to tough it out for another 12 hours. Time sat on the ledge so far, 26 hours.

This night was the toughest yet. Having already spent 2 nights up there, the bivvy bag had taken a serious battering, multiple tears and rips from the sharp rocks, and we had to repair it and pull it across us to give any barrier from the relentless wind. Max and I huddling together for warmth, all I could think of was whether we had another night in us. The energy lost on staying warm was quite exhausting, actually. By this point, we’d eaten the last of our reserve food, so things could be getting serious if the teams weren’t successful and the weather wasn’t in our favour…again.

Search and Rescue members suspended on the 100 ft winch line.

10/4/26 At 1 am, we stuck our heads out and were relieved to feel no wind blowing us, to see the valley below illuminated by the moon, silhouettes of the neighbouring giant mountains and a starry sky. Very, very cold at this point, but I felt calm in knowing, providing this weather remained as it was, that we had just 6 more hours to endure. Hands tucked under armpits and sat in a ball. In my sleeping bag. I don’t think I’ve ever been sitting still for such a long time. At 5 am, we confirm the weather is still good, and then we wait for dawn, and the whirr of rotors soon approaches. The heli team circles around us before landing in the valley below near Lake Adelaide.

The rescue- 38 hours of being sat on the ledge. From where we were sitting, we could see the crewmen exit the heli below, take some equipment from bags and a short time after, they were lifted off the ground 30 metres below the helicopter. It slowly approached, and we ducked our heads down and gripped our bags. We’d already put our climbing helmets on, put away sleeping bags and roll mats to allow for a speedy rescue and more room for the team to land on the ledge. The helicopter was right above us and dropped the team members on the ledge with us. They unattached from the winch, and after the heli flew away, we were introduced to Richie and Dave, crewmen and volunteers to the Southern Lakes Helicopter Search and Rescue service. Dave was also a doctor, and he checked us over on the ledge and confirmed we were just very cold but thankfully uninjured. Max was to be winched off first, so he was quickly fitted with a rescue harness, our bags secured, and as the helicopter returned in close, Dave, Max and the bags were attached to the winch line, and all were gently plucked from the ledge and flown to the safe landing point near Lake Adelaide below.

Then it was my turn, same process again. Heli returned, I’d already been fitted with my harness, and it was just a case of attaching to the winch. I was in awe of the skilled flying from the pilots above. Snow and Lloyd. The precision and control to fly a helicopter not even 30 metres from the edge of the cliff was amazing. Carabiners attached, I felt tension on the line, and soon I was weightless, suspended 100 ft below a helicopter, flying about 700m above the valley floor. Only at this point did I process that the brutal cold, hunger and exhaustion were finally over, a very big relief, and I have to say that being rescued by a winch dangling below a helicopter flying in Fiordland will stay with me forever, an experience I hope not to have again!

Once back on the valley floor, we warmed up in another bivvy with a flask of tea and a quick snack before a flight back to Te Anau hospital for check-ups and a debrief with the Search and Rescue and Police who had all been involved. The thing everyone said to us, which significantly contributed to our survival for that period of time, was carrying a PLB, having the appropriate survival equipment like our bivvy, spare layers and sleeping bags and that we stayed put and made the decision to call for help when we were confronted with the ever-deteriorating weather. It was sobering to hear that it is not always a successful rescue operation for other climbers in our situation. I’m pleased I’ve had it drilled into me for all my years of being an outdoor instructor to be prepared and carry safety equipment. They also cautioned how rapidly the weather in Fiordland can change and that in the future, it’s best to allow a wider weather window to achieve our missions. Advice well received!

My painfully swollen feet once the colour had returned and they regained warmth! Ow!

In the hospital, Dave from the rescue did our follow-up, and I remember looking at how wet and saturated my hands were and just worrying what condition my feet would be in. I knew they were cold, but removing my footwear and socks exposed my ice block toes, and instantly, as the blood flow rushed back through, the pain arrived. My toes had a purple tinge to them, and my feet swelled up immediately. My body temperature was 34.5°c. I put my feet in the air to reduce swelling and wrapped them in a jumper. An earlier stage of frostbite is called frostnip, fortunately reversible by rewarming, but it’s caused by skin being exposed to the cold for an extended period, and the cold hasn’t gone too deep into the cells, resulting in numbness. Max had the same, just slightly more serious. After some time, the colour and warmth returned, and I was assured I’d make a full recovery without chopping off any of my digits, just to expect swollen feet and numbness for a few days to a week. After 5 hours of observation, I was released.

Again, I cannot emphasise the importance of wearing and packing the correct kit, and having a PLB and/or satellite communication in these remote environments. The importance of knowing your limits when facing an adverse situation and making a decision to stop and seek help. The importance of being prepared to have to wait to be rescued if the conditions are deemed unsafe and a risk to the volunteer rescue and helicopter crew. Stay safe out there, folks!

Thank you again to Richie, Dave, Snow and Lloyd at Southern Lakes Helicopter Rescue and to Sergeants Dougall Henderson and Ian Martin from Invercargill police for the reassuring satellite communication and for their dedication and determination to safely rescue Max and me.