Deaths and injuries in trampers in Tasman among the highest in the country

Tuesday, 26 June 2018

Trampers descend from the summit of Mt Arthur, in the Kahurangi National Park.

Deaths and injuries on Tasman tramping tracks are among the highest in the country, a new report shows.

The Mountain Safety Council (MSC) report, A Walk in the Park?, also shows there is a high proportion of solo trampers in Tasman.

The first stretch of the Heaphy Track on the West Coast, north of Karamea.

In the last decade, 10 people died while tramping in the region and seven of them were tramping alone.

Five of those deaths were the result of a fall, two were due to drowning in a river and three of the trampers have never been found.

The tussock-covered Gouland Downs on the Heaphy Track.

* Our Great Outdoors: 5 deaths, 500 rescues, 4000 tramping injuries every year**

MSC spokesman Nick Kingstone said information from the report could be used by other organisations as a reference point for targeted safety messages and initiatives.

'We don't necessarily understand just why people are going solo so often but it does appear to be a lot of solo trampers and they are showing up in the incident statistics.'

He said it was the first time data from several organisations had been collated to give an overview of the sector and what was happening in each region.

The report found more 1.5 million people tramped in New Zealand in 2017, about 900,000 of which were New Zealanders. There were 5504 tramping injuries reported in that time, meaning that for every 279 trampers, one needed medical care.

The 'Tasman hotspot' included the region's three national parks, the coastal Abel Tasman National Park, the large and mostly remote Kahurangi National Park and at the northern tip of the Southern Alps, Nelson Lakes National Park.

Kingstone said it featured some of the most diverse landscapes in the country and was traditionally one of the most popular tramping areas in New Zealand.

In the 2016/17 year the most walked tracks were the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, the Heaphy Track and the Mt Arthur track. While the Travers-Sabine circuit, the Robert Ridge route and the track to Angelus Hut in the Nelson Lakes were also popular.

The report found the Tasman area came second among the nine hotspots for all three incident categories, injuries, fatalities and search and rescue operations.

Kingstone said the data had the ability to confirm or deny long-held assumptions.

In the decade ending in 2017, 3324 trampers were injured in Tasman. There were also 400 trampers involved in search and rescue over the last seven years.

'If you listen to the generally held belief, often you hear it is all the tourists that are coming to the Tasman region and getting into trouble,' Kingstone said. 'It's not to say they are not getting into trouble because they are, but if you actually look at the search and rescue data, the majority are Kiwis.'

But the majority of those search and rescues, 72 per cent were for Kiwis.

It was hoped the data could be used by organisations at a local level to better prepare trampers for the specific environment they were heading into.

However, there has been criticism the report was data-driven and Federated Mountain Clubs president Peter Wilson felt it would do little to change tramper behaviour.

'You can't tell the story of mountain safety with data. Each accident tells a story – you have a unique set of circumstances relevant to its participants.

'The level the MSC is on is high level and abstract and increasingly disconnected from the reality of the outdoor community.'

The report data covers a 10-year period and came from a range of sources, including ACC, police, Rescue Coordination Centre, coroner's office, Sport NZ, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Tramping was defined as any walking activity in the outdoors where the participant had intended to be out for more than three hours.

A Walk In The Park? is the third data analysis by MSC. The organisation previously produced a general overview of outdoor incidents and a report into hunting incidents.