Three climbers from the United States and Canada disappeared near the peak of New Zealand’s tallest mountain, authorities said on Tuesday.
Rescue teams have been scouring New Zealand’s Mount Cook in search of missing climbers Kurt Blair, Carlos Romero and an unidentified Canadian. Crews recovered their equipment but haven’t found any other traces of the trio.
Blair, 56, and Romero, 50, are both certified alpine guides, according to the American Mountain Guides Association website. They hail from Colorado and California, respectively.
Information about the missing Canadian will not be released until his family is properly notified of his disappearance, according to a statement from New Zealand Police.
The three men were reported missing after they didn’t make their scheduled flight out of New Zealand on Dec. 2, according to the statement. Authorities started the search the same day, but all activity was halted until Dec. 5 due to unfavorable weather conditions, including heavy rain and snow on the mountain.
The Silverton Avalanche School, where Blair was employed, shared a post on Facebook claiming that New Zealand authorities had informed them that the trio took “a fatal fall” and are presumed dead.
“He was the nicest guy you’d ever share a rope or trail or skin track with, and his humility, competence and polite nature made him a client and student favorite. For those of us who have logged significant time in the backcountry with Kurt, the loss of such a wise and steady partner is devastating,” the school staff wrote in the post.
Mount Cook, also known as Aoraki, is part of the Southern Alps and towers over all others in the region at 12,218 feet high. Edmund Hillary, a member of the first expedition to scale Mount Everest, practiced hiking Aoraki in preparation for the historic mission.
More than 240 deaths have been recorded on the mountain and in the greater national park since the early 1900s.
