A tourist from the Czech Republic on Friday spoke of her harrowing month-long ordeal in New Zealand’s frozen wilderness.
Advertisement
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, who owned the warden’s hut, said there significant hazards walking the Routeburn Track in winter.
A coroner’s inquiry is underway into 27-year-old Petr’s death.
After her partner’s tragic death, the woman spent three nights outdoors enduring freezing conditions before she came across the hut that would temporarily become her home.
A CZECH bushwalker made an “H” in the snow with ashes as she desperately waited for help, while holed up in a remote South Island hut for nearly a month after her travel companion’s death.
Pizova, 33, and her partner began hiking the famous Routeburn track in Fiordland National Park on 26 July and planned to reach 50-bed Lake Mackenzie Hut, an isolated tourist facility in the area.
A search party found Pizova August 24, 2016 more than a month after she and her partner, Ondrej Petr, set out to walk the 32-kilometre (20-mile) Routeburn track, which traverses the Southern Alps in the southwest of New Zealand. She was, however, greatly upset by her ordeal, police said. “We encountered heavy snowfall and low cloud which contributed to our enforced overnighting in the open”, Pizova said.
She finally reached it on the fourth day, breaking in through a window.
Pizova broke down in tears as she read her account in halting English. “She just tried to do everything to survive – tried to rub her feet, exercising her feet and hands, keep them moving”.
Ms Pizova would end up spending almost a month at the hut. Using a burnt stick, she wrote the letter H for “help” in the snow.
“I am aware we made a few mistakes”, she said, adding that they had underestimated the hard conditions on the trail during winter, failed to carry a personal locator beacon (PLB) and did not inform anyone of their intentions.
Pizova spent the night beside Petr’s body and another battling through deep powder trying to get to the cabin.
“If she was in the warden’s hut she would have been okay”, he said.
Ms Kennett said Ms Pizova survived on food left behind by the wardens, who do not live there during the winter.
The Czech consulate raised the alarm after the two travelers, believed to be about 30, were not heard from for some time.
Police said they plan to try to recover the body of the man.
Advertisement
The woman’s refuge finally came after police found the couple’s auto at the trailhead and sent a helicopter out on a search for the vehicle’s owners. He said Pizova was relieved to see her rescuers. She found a mountain radio on the hut but she had failed to operate it to ask for help.
