By ALISON HORWOOD
Missing Nelson tramper Karl Sorensen was advised by fellow trampers to turn back the day he entered the rugged Kahurangi National Park in bitter weather.
But the 23-year-old told the trampers in reply on May 17, "Thanks very much, but I'll be all right," his uncle, Kevin Carey, said last night.
He said Mr Sorensen was an experienced coastal tramper but the national park was "tiger country" and the weather was deteriorating.
"The day he went in, the weather went from balmy summer to winter. Almost immediately it snowed for three days."
Police and search and rescue teams abandoned their search at the weekend, 15 days after Mr Sorensen was due to return from the national park inland from Motueka. They have already said there is little chance of finding him alive.
His father, Steve Sorensen, could not be contacted last night but is believed to be planning his own search.
The official search began after Department of Conservation staff found abandoned clothes and a note stuffed into a can near the headwaters of the Leslie River.
The note suggested that Mr Sorensen was unhurt and was trying to walk north out of the area.
Mr Sorensen left a Gateway Trust flat in Nelson - which cares for people with mental illness - this year.
His uncle described him as a "shy sort of boy who enjoyed his own company." He had been very upset at the death of his mother last year.
Mr Carey said the temperatures had been sub-zero and Mr Sorensen was not thought to be adequately dressed.
"It's a tragedy really," he said. "He had done some compass work and felt pretty accomplished after doing the Abel Tasman National Park and Nelson Lakes. But they were coastal walks and nothing prepared him for the tiger country of Kahurangi."
Tramper was told to turn back
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