Sisters spot lost trampers from helicopter

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX South Island correspondent

Cold, tired and hungry, missing trampers Marni Sheppeard and Sonja Rendell sat shrouded in cloud high in Arthurs Pass National Park for seven days and eight nights.

The nights were the worst part, they said yesterday, and all they could do was talk about the food they wanted most.

Ms Sheppeard blamed herself for the pair's misfortune and for causing "all this trouble".

For the past four days the women heard helicopters above them, but with thick cloud all around them they could do nothing to attract the searchers' attention.

Yesterday the cloud lifted, the sun shone and the Christchurch physics students were finally spotted - by their own sisters.

Sitting in the Iroquois helicopter watching the rocky landscape pass beneath them, the sisters of the missing women realised what search teams below had to contend with.

It was day four of the search in the mountainous Arthurs Pass National Park. The women had been out in the cold for eight extra nights. The mood at the search base was becoming sombre.

Then, as the helicopter flew over a ridge on Mt Isobel (2036m), Gina Sheppeard spotted two figures 100m away on the rock face, frantically waving poles and a blue sleeping bag.

"There they are, there they are!" she yelled into the headset.

Ms Rendell's two sisters also saw the women and began yelling and pointing.

Beside them, one of the search leaders, Sergeant Dan Harker, gestured for "a bit of calm".

He told them not to get too excited as the two figures could be members of the search and rescue party.

But a sweep back over the ridge revealed what the searchers, family and friends had been hoping for since the women were reported missing on Christmas Day.

Ms Sheppeard and Ms Rendell looked active and well.

"There were tears and hugs all round, let me tell you," said Sergeant Harker. "It was pretty bloody brilliant to be on that flight."

Back at rescue headquarters in the Department of Conservation's Arthurs Pass visitors' centre, search co-ordinator Senior Constable Phil Simmonds "got the nod" as the Iroquois swooped back into base.

Jason Barlow, partner of one of Ms Rendell's sisters, confirmed what those on the ground were waiting for when he leaped out of the helicopter and ran towards their friends, punching the air in jubilation.

An Air Force medic boarded the helicopter and was flown back into the mountains behind the tiny Arthurs Pass village.

Within 40 minutes the missing women were being carried from the Iroquois and laid carefully on the grass outside the visitors' centre.

Both were swooped on by family members.

University friends stood nearby and began ringing other friends with the message: "They're safe, they're OK, tell everyone."

Marni Sheppeard, an experienced mountaineer who has climbed Mt Cook, was in the better shape.

She talked calmly to her sister Gina, telling her, "It's all my fault. I wanted to go up that way." She said she had caused "all this trouble".

But she was sharply reprimanded: "It doesn't matter. You're safe. That's all."

Beside them, Sonja Rendell burst into tears trying to hug her sisters and Mr Barlow all at once.

"It's been all over the news," her sisters told her as cameras clicked around their joyful reunion.

"Oh, but I haven't washed my hair for a week," Ms Rendell joked.

When her other sister handed her a pot of orange lip balm to soothe her chapped lips, Ms Rendell said: "Oh my god, just what I needed."

After being examined at the base the pair were airlifted to Christchurch Hospital, where they spent the night under observation.

Christchurch Hospital emergency doctor Rob Ojala said the trampers had minor injuries, but were otherwise in good spirits.

"They're sodden, hungry and tired," he said. "They have minor injuries, but their level of fitness means that they have come out of it well.

"One has frost nip on her feet. Both have a lot of soft tissue injuries, infected scratches and they are swollen in the limbs."

The pair told police they had tried to avoid a large ice patch on their trek to the Julia Hut on the morning of December 22, and went up a ridge to get around it

But the going was rough and steep, and after a couple of close calls with crumbling rocks and cliff edges, Ms Rendell told her tramping partner she could go no further that day.

As the weather suddenly turned cold, wet and snowy the pair set up a bivouac and sat among the rocks to sit out the bad weather.

They sat for a week - as did the weather.

Searchers probably passed within a few hundred metres of them, but the conditions meant they could not see or hear each other.

The happy ending came as the search and rescue operation entered its fourth day.

Almost 50 people were in the park, and other volunteers were supporting them by answering phones and supplying food and cups of tea at the base.

After the drama was over, Mr Simmonds said the first hint of the sighting of the women yesterday morning was "out of this world, brilliant, fantastic news".

But it was a different story straight after he was briefed by Mr Harker when the Iroquois brought the family members back.

Then, Mr Simmonds was close to tears and initially speechless.

The search team worked long days and nights.

Mr Simmonds and Canterbury search and rescue adviser Dave Saunders say they got three or four hours' sleep each night.

"But that's what we do this for," said Mr Saunders, a 40-year search and rescue veteran.

"And these happy endings make it all worthwhile."

Gina Sheppeard said her sister was upbeat, although tired and hungry.

"A chocolate bar I opened was eaten by them pretty quickly."

Canterbury police district superintendent Sandra Manderson, who was at the search base when the women were found, said it was "magic".

"So many people were involved ... the amount of work they all did was incredible," she said.

"They were very positive the whole time and this is a magic moment."