Bushwalk Australia

Police received a phone call last night from a bushwalker lost near Wentworth Falls. The search resumed at 0700. Not located so far.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bushwalker-sp ... qg7ze.html

Lindsay wrote:Police received a phone call last night from a bushwalker lost near Wentworth Falls. The search resumed at 0700. Not located so far.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bushwalker-sp ... qg7ze.html

Found around soon after 8 am I believe. Same link above has been updated - ankle injury and hypothermia but expected to recover. Good outcome given the circumstances reported. Another report I read said he was on the Wentworth Pass. How one would get lost on that I don't know, unless something has changed dramatically within the last 9 months.

It's not as hard to believe as it might seem, especially if you don't know the area. I've run into someone heading downstream from Vera Falls thinking that they were going the right way to Empress Falls, and someone at the base of Slack's Staircase who though that they'd been on National Pass, rather than Wentworth Pass.

LachlanB wrote:It's not as hard to believe as it might seem, especially if you don't know the area. I've run into someone heading downstream from Vera Falls thinking that they were going the right way to Empress Falls, and someone at the base of Slack's Staircase who though that they'd been on National Pass, rather than Wentworth Pass.

Agreed on those points Lachlan, I've had similar encounters, but those people were geographically confused rather than lost (yet). What I was getting at is that it's a mostly well defined track and unusual that anyone would stray off it. Wentworth Pass is pretty short; if he stayed with it both ends link to other tracks that will take you to back civilisation, and the signage is good having been upgraded in recent years. One creek crossing is a bit vague at first glance so maybe that could have had an influence, given that it sounds like inexperience may have played a part - no food or water carried etc. We'll probably never know.

Given that some people just can't read maps properly, even at a basic level, so anything is possible.

I would guess that they weren't carrying a map - but you can't rule out possible incapacitation so perhaps they weren't as lost as it may be sounding; rather stuck in one place / couldn't extricate himself.

He was on the track at Vera Falls and without a torch and the onset of night he lost the track and spent the night...a cold night!

The confusion about Wentworth Pass may be that a woman broke her leg there only a couple of days later. Blue Mountains Police Rescue have been busy.