Joe's Tale Of Survival

The Grandmother Of Seven Recalls The Killer Climb.

- Julie Jacobson

There are two maps pinned up on a wall in Jo Morgan’s expansive lounge. One – a large map of the world − shows, in heavy, black felt tip, the places she and husband Gareth have visited on their now annual motorbike adventures.

The other, smaller and more detailed, highlights a section of the Southern Alps. To the uninitiated, the image is one of inhospitable snow-capped peaks, deep bleak valleys and Lord of the Rings terrain.

Jo points to one of the jewellike markers glinting in the late afternoon light that’s filtering through the picture windows of the Morgans’ Oriental Bay, Wellington home.

“There,” she says, “that’s where we were.” Mt Hicks was the 22nd of 24 peaks Jo had promised herself she’d climb by the time she got her Gold Card. On October 31, the grandmother of seven almost died, her lower body buried metres deep in an avalanche that claimed the lives of guides Wolfgang Maier (58) Jo’s “other half” who had been with her on all of her previous climbs, and Martin Hess (50).

It’s also there that Jo, in shocked silence and with the growing realisation there was nothing she could do for her two companions, found herself reaching for her phone to take a photograph of the sunrise.

“It seems bizarre now,” she recalls. “There was no response to my shouts to the guys, and there was a despair realising I was trapped and couldn’t help locate them. But then there was this glorious sunrise that seemed to give me a sense of peace. My phone was around my neck, so I got it out and took a photo.”

Jo’s is a remarkable tale of survival and, as she says, incredible luck. It’s also the tale of a woman determined to live life to the full.