Solo Tramping Fatality Highlights Risks

Mountain Safety Council (MSC) CEO Mike Daisley said the recent death of a tramper in the Nelson Lakes region is a tragic reminder of the extra risks of solo tramping.

“We’d like to express our condolences to the family and friends of this tramper.”

“This incident is a tragic reminder that while tramping is a relatively safe activity, solo tramping in alpine regions in winter has higher risks involved. Sometimes these risks become a terrible reality.”

MSC’s recently released publication ‘A Walk In The Park?’ which focused on the last ten years of incident data for tramping found that solo tramping was over-represented in the search and rescue as well as fatality statistics. The report, available via the council’s website, found that 38% of all search and rescues, and a staggering 49% of fatalities were trampers on their own.

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“When you look at the incident data, solo tramping sticks out immediately as an issue that we needed to know more about.”

“We intend to bring one of our ‘Issue Specific Advisory Groups’ together in the near future to look into this in more detail. In a data-driven way this group will suggest mitigation strategies that the tramping and recreation community will use to suppress these incidents in the future where it’s possible.”

“These kinds of incidents are often preventable, which is why MSC continues to collaborate with a wide range of organisations to try and prevent these types of incidents occurring again.”

Daisley said the council will be working with the response agencies and the coroner once the facts are collated in due course.

“It’s presumptuous to leap to the cause of this tragedy too soon. What matters now is that there’s a grieving family who are heartbroken that their son or brother won’t make it home.”

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