Forklift News - Forklift driver rescued off Mt Cook

Mt Cook

A 37-year-old Australian forklift driver was rescued after two days stranded on New Zealand’s Mt Cook last week.

Expedition leader Terry Cole from Sydney and five other climbers spent two terrifying nights stranded in chest-deep snow and blizzard conditions as deadly avalanches threatened.

Cole, his partner Jenni Landon, Stephen Dolphin, Melissa Clerke, David Freeland and Gerald Osman were on the sixth day of a seven-day trek.

Cole works for Sydney-based Phoenix Transport, where he has spend the last four years as a forklift driver at the Sydney warehouse. "We do many containers for Sony, Target and TNT," he tells Forkliftaction.com News.

The group’s ordeal began when they set out from Mount Cook Village for Mueller Hut, halfway up Mt Cook. Their plan was to move on to the Barron Saddle when the weather deteriorated unexpectedly and they turned back towards the hut.

They were only 1,470 feet (448 metres) from it when a blizzard stranded them in the open on the Metelille Glacier where avalanches thundered past 160 feet (48 metres) side of their tents.

Cole said the climbers were equipped for bad weather and had an extra day's rations with them.

"Being the leader of the trip, I was prepared in case something like that happened," he says.

"All of your training and survival skills are used but you never do anticipate to be put in that position.

"You start thinking about your life and what you could have done, and things you could have changed," he says.

"I am so grateful to all the people who thought about us and who sent their support."

The group was partly protected by an overhang, however their two tents were repeatedly filled with snow.

Coles says they were all so glad to get out of there alive.

Cole and Dolphin were preparing for a trek on foot to try to reach a hut when they were finally rescued.

"Two of us were going to try and walk out as a last resort but then the rescuers saw us. It was a wonderful feeling," he says. "When we saw the helicopter, we all jumped up and yelled ‘yippee’!"

The group was rescued by a search and rescue helicopter after being alerted by the climbers’ emergency beacon, but the horrendous conditions prevented a rescue until the next day.

Cole says he will still be adventurous but does not plan on another climb like his recent one.

"I am in the midst of planning a trip, although it will not be as intense or dangerous. You realise how much you mean to other people. I do not want to put my family through something like that again," he says.

However, Cole believes mountaineering is in his blood: "You feel free and it’s amazing on the top of a mountain."

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