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Ryan Campbell - Source: Mountain Scene -
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Stay within the boundaries and be aware of the dangerous conditions is the warning after the second avalanche death in just over a week.
A 30-year-old Queenstown man was killed in the latest incident about a kilometre outside the Coronet Peak Skifield boundary on Sunday night.
Search teams took over two hours to find Ryan Campbell and had to dig five metres down.
"Had to move a lot of snow there was about 12 diggers going very very fast to dig down to that depth and he was found about 2.5 metres slightly uphill from that," says Alpine Rescue Team Leader Aaron Halstead.
But it was too late. Attempts to resuscitate the snowboarder were unsuccessful.
"The most frustrating thing is knowing there's a person there and actually just trying to find them and they don't have a transceiver and you're looking for a needle in a haystack that's essentially what you're trying to do," says Halstead.
It happened not long after the Coronet Peak Ski Area had closed for the night.
Up to 30 people and dogs were involved in the frantic search after a skier raised the alarm.
Snow groomers provided lights as crucial time ticked past.
The avalanche comes as no surprise to those who are following the snow conditions.
"It's been like this for at least two weeks and it's not ending any time soon," says Chris Cochrane, Regional Avalanche Forecaster of the Mountain Safety Council.
"It really just needs a trigger and that trigger unfortunately at this stage is either a snowboarder or skier."
Heli skiing operations were taking extra precautions on Monday.
Unlike the snowboarders who ignored the warnings and took to the back country a few hundred metres from the Coronet Peak ski boundary, with such devastating consequences.
