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Climbers Mark Vinar, left, Miles Vinar, right - Source: ONE News -
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New Zealand's highest mountain has claimed the life of a second tourist in less than a week.
Australian Mark Vinar fell an estimated 500 metres while climbing a dangerous part of Aoraki-Mount Cook and is now presumed to be dead.
Search and Rescue Pilot Nigel Gee says teams have searched the Zubriggens Ridge area where 43-year old Vinar was last seen, but could not find him.
Since he fell, snow has covered the many trecherous crevasses, making the search teams job even harder.
Mark's brother Miles Vinar was rescued early on Saturday morning, after spending three days in a snow cave using a flashlight to alert other climbers and is in good health.
He told searchers the pair had bivouacked high on Zurbriggens Ridge on Wednesday night. But on Thursday, they decided to descend back to Plateau Hut via the ridge due to bad weather.
Soon after setting off, Mark Vinar lost his footing and disappeared from view, plunging down a steep cliff.
Police say the return trip back to Plateau Hut, where the two Australian tourists were staying, should only have taken around 16 to 18 hours.
Authorities had been waiting for a break in the weather so they can mount an aerial search for the climbers - visibility was poor in the overcast conditions of Thursday and Friday.
The brothers were both experience climbers having conducted the TMC course in New Zealand, then climbed Mt Aspiring and Mt Tasmin together. Mark had also climbed in South America. They had trained for months leading up to Mt Cook and were planning to climb in Alaska next year.
Miles Vinar also narrowly avoided being buried alive himself, rescuers realised. Senior Constable Les Andrew from Omarama police says he would have been buried if his snow cave was just a few metres in the other direction.
He says after the rescue Miles was in fine condition physically, but emotionally exhausted over his brother's death.
The official search has been called off but climbers and pilots in the area have been asked to keep a lookout for his body.
Just last week, two Japanese climbers became stranded on Aoraki.
One died just hours before rescuers reached them, while the other narrowly survived, suffering frostbite to his face, ears, and fingers.
With 30cm of snowfall and the area where the missing man disappeared surrounded by deep crevasses, searchers have decided that further rescue efforts on Saturday would prove fruitless. DOC says the area is too dangerous to search on foot.
Mt Cook: Deceptively deadly
Vinar's death is the second on Mt Cook in as many weeks, and the 70th since records began.
A Mt Cook guide says New Zealand's peaks, Aoraki especially, are often tougher to climb than others around the world.
Whitney Thurlow from Aspiring Guides says the difficulty of our mountains is often much harder than people experience in other, more temperate regions, as snow and ice danger is quite extreme.
He says there are also sudden shifts in New Zealand weather which can take people by surprise.
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