Our group of three arrived at Tukino Skifield late on Friday night to begin a long weekend of ski-touring. I had been climbing with Alf Walsh for a couple of years, he was in his early forties, a fire station officer, very fit, and great fun on a trip with his endless stream of humorous anecdotes. I had known Delmar Schafer since college days. At 21, he was only a couple of years younger than me and was a quiet young chap, fit and dependable. We had done loads of tramping trips and in more recent years we had found a common interest in ski-touring. I was the most experienced climber, Delmar the most experienced skier, and Alf beat us both hands down with his life experience.

Given the sheer number of trips I had taken to Ruapehu, it was probably inevitable that one of these would become an epic. As with any epic, it all started so merrily. A moonlit skin up to the NZAC Whangaehu Hut got us well primed for the days ahead. We arrived at the hut very late with an early start planned. A hot raro perfectly completed our first night.

Alf Walsh above the Wahianoa Glacier, taken one hour before the storm hit and looking in the direction it came from. As you can see, nothing nasty in sight!

Blue skies and no wind greeted us in the morning; we skied down the slope below the hut to the Whangaehu Glacier, where we fixed skins for the long haul to the plateau. By mid-morning we reached the end of our carry. Dumping packs, we skinned up Pare, skied off the summit and all the way down the Whangaehu Glacier in perfect snow. We were back at the packs for lunch but didn’t hang around long before heading off for some play time in the steep, deep powder on the south face of Tukino. Eventually we had to head back to our packs and dig our snow cave for the night.

Upon completion of the cave we settled down to cook. I surprised the other two with a cask of red wine and camembert and crackers that I’d kept hidden. We had a jovial night celebrating and toasting our success.

The southerly wind got up a bit overnight but it was still clear in the morning, except for wispy high-altitude cloud that signalled the onset of bad weather. Expecting a storm before next morning, we decided to shift our gear up to the Dome Shelter before setting off so that we could enjoy more storm-friendly accommodations later.

Given the deteriorating weather, we decided to take a staged approach to the day, setting small objectives then reassessing options. We set off, skiing from the hut toward the crater and then herringboned and traversed round to the south side of the crater before removing our skis, donning crampons and climbing to the prominent outcrop on the east ridge of Tahurangi. With the weather holding, we carried on to Ruapehu’s summit and then skied down the Wahianoa Glacier and over the saddle just above the gendarme into the Mangaehuehu Glacier.

We ditched our skis beside the gendarme and started to climb Girdlestone. About this time, the weather started to get bad in a hurry. The wind intensity started to crank up and as we got to the summit, cloud appeared from nowhere and enveloped us. By the time we got back to our skis only half an hour later we had nil visibility, heavy snow and wind so strong we had to shout into each other’s ears to be heard.

To avoid the worst of the wind, the decision was made to bail for the Tahurangi / Mitre saddle and drop into the crater outlet valley and then back up the Whangaehu to the Dome. I knew there was a steep but negotiable gully from the notch down to the Wahianoa, which would be our quickest exit route. We put on skis and skins, needing only to side step down about 20m until we could begin a very gentle climb to the saddle. I went first, with the others just behind, but the whiteout enveloped me. I slipped on a bit of ice and plunged about 100m down the gully until the angle eased and I came to rest. I was pretty sure the others hadn’t seen me go so decided on a steep climb, which would intersect their gentle climb. Miraculously I found them, thanks to perfect timing. As tracks were immediately covered by the wind and visibility was extremely bad, they had been annoyed thinking I had charged on ahead.

We could not stand closer than 100m to the saddle owing to the extreme wind. We strapped skis to our packs and donned crampons and axes. That 100m stretch of almost flat terrain took about 15 minutes to negotiate and was one of the worst wind experiences of my life. We were on our bellies, heads pointing into the wind and front pointing backwards a few moves at a time between gusts. Every gust suffocated us. Scary, not to be able to breathe, tears blinding our eyes. Axes driven deep into the ice, barely preventing us being torn from the mountain, our bodies lifting and violently flapping like some blanket in a gale. Five metres down the lee side was calm, giving us a chance to rest our frayed nerves.

Even with less than 10m visibility we made it back to Dome Shelter in quick time without any navigation issues. The final 20m or so was fairly extreme due to the extra wind exposure on the ridge and having to enter through the turret hatch.

The wind raged throughout the night, swinging round to the north while the snow continued to fall heavily. In the morning, the decision was made to bail for the car; we were due out later in the afternoon anyway.

It was too windy to ski from the Dome but when we got off the ridge we decided to continue carrying skis because of the completely flat light and 10m visibility man-to-man. We decided it would be easier to stay together on foot. Heading down the Whangaehu Glacier, we got a little off course and soon realized we had wandered too far right and had dropped into the gorge.

We started traversing back to the left side of the glacier across 30-degree slopes in knee deep powder. Half way across we were caught in a small avalanche, which buried us to our thighs. With few other options, we carried on and soon found the base of the cliff below the NZAC hut and began up the 40-degree slope leading to the hut. About half way up, the slope whoomphed and we realised, having already had a close call, that continuing up would be too risky. We retraced our steps directly back to the toe of the slope. The hut slope is the only breach in the gorge wall and none of us knew if a route would be practicable continuing down the gorge. We decided to abandon trying to get out and return to Dome Shelter for the night.

It was a tough trudge up in deep snow. Conditions were terrible and we had been going for half the day already with no rest or shelter. Our plan was to keep left against the steep slopes of Pyramid going up, and then when the angle eased move right to find the toe of the Dome ridge, which we could then follow to the shelter. This was exactly what we had done the previous day in similar conditions. Today, however, we didn’t move right soon enough and the first sign of this was when I stepped off a small cornice and fell a couple of metres into deep snow on a steep face. Alf and Del managed to drag me back up. We realised I had just stepped off the east edge of the wall to the Crater Lake. Had this happened 100m further west, it would have been a probable fatal fall off the ice cliffs.

We just had to walk directly across without losing height to find the toe of the Dome ridge. We would be in the shelter within 20 minutes – or so we thought. Because of the continuing flat light and deep snow, we must have lost height without noticing and after walking for 10 minutes or so, we realised we had missed the ridge and were on the plateau. We must have been close, we had been using a compass all day but it was just impossible to stay on a bearing. We couldn’t get more than 5m apart without losing sight of each other, and the screaming wind took your voice away if we were more than 1m apart.

We took a bearing again anyway, which we thought would lead us back to the Dome ridge. We walked and walked and knew we had missed our target. At 2pm we eventually found a small, steep, lee slope and decided to dig a cave to get some shelter before nightfall.

It was a relief to get out of the storm but we knew we wouldn’t have a comfortable night because our clothes were wet with sweat and wet snow from our cave building efforts. We had plenty of fuel and spare food so we had a good meal and were confident we would get out in the morning.

The night was long and we shivered through it, not getting much sleep. Eventually I was so wide awake, I decided to check my watch and see how much longer I would have to shiver until dawn. I was shocked to find that it was 10am but it was pitch black in the cave when it should have been bright with light filtering through the snow. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach, realising our cave must have been buried by metres of drifting snow overnight. We were buried alive.

I woke the others and gave them the bad news. We had to dig our way out but only had the void of our cave to fill with snow as we dug. Our cave was small, having been dug as an emergency shelter, only where the entrance had been could you sit up without touching the roof with your head. We put our storm gear on and packed everything into our packs to maximize available space. In the process of packing, we found we had almost no oxygen and quickly tired. We tried to light a candle and it wouldn’t light. Things were bad.

Alf and I decided to share the digging while Delmar would do the snow disposal and compaction by stamping it into his end of the cave. We dug a narrow tunnel just wide enough for a body and at a 60-degree angle, which we estimated to be the shortest distance to the surface. One person could only dig for about 15 seconds at a time before collapsing in oxygen debt, and then the other would take over. Soon we were running short of space and so buried the packs at the other end of the cave. By now the tunnel was about 4m long and there was still no sign of any light filtering in.

There was almost no space left for snow disposal, we were desperate. We put it to Delmar that we bury him in a sitting position up to his armpits. Bravely, Delmar agreed without any debate or complaint. We all knew we had no other options. He got back into a bivvy sack first and we got on with it. Delmar was completely buried when the first signs of light were seen at the end of the tunnel. When we eventually dug through to sky, the cave had been completely filled except for the 300mm breathing space in the roof for Delmar near the entrance. It’s hard to describe the sheer relief we felt at this point.

Alf and I were both outside but poor Delmar would still be buried for more than an hour until we had improved the entrance sufficiently to enable us to disinter him. Throughout this ordeal, Delmar never once complained. Alf and I owe him a lot for the completely selfless way he conducted himself that day.

Even though we were out of our tomb we were not yet out of the woods. The weather was still as bad as ever and we were not sure where we were. Our gut told us we were on the north edge of the plateau above Whakapapa skifield. It was tempting to just pack up and go but we decided to remain patient and stay at our cave until we were sure. We would keep a 24-hour watch on the cave entrance to keep it clear. We had shelter, plenty of fuel and enough muesli bars and chocolate for a few days. We would wait.

We made sure someone stayed outside at all times in case of any clearance. Late in the afternoon our patience was rewarded. The clouds parted for about 5 seconds but it was enough to recognize a feature and confirm our position. We were going home. We quickly packed and jumped into our skis, this took no more than 15 minutes, such was our eagerness to escape. We decided after the extreme avalanche conditions we had experienced the previous day on eastern slopes that we would head to Whakapapa, rather than to our car at Tukino.

A weary Mike Peat just below Ruapehu's Summit Plateau, ready to head home. Whakapapa skifield is below and the Pinnacles are at upper right. This photo was taken about 30 minutes after the first clearance, and shows no evidence of the two-day severe gales and sub-10m visibility the climbers had just endured.

We were a day overdue and needed to minimize risks and get out quickly to let family know we were safe. By the time we got going the clearance was almost complete and the wind had eased significantly. The storm was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

Within the hour we were drinking coffee at the skifield car park café. The Police were great, coming to get us, arranging accommodation in Waiouru and then dropping us back to our vehicle at Tukino the following day. We got home eventually to our families, two days late, with quite a story to tell.