Rescuers who saved two tourists dressed in hoodies, jeans and sneakers near the summit of Mount Ngāuruhoe have recalled how "oblivious to danger" the lost pair were.
Police revealed on Tuesday a climbing party stumbled across the pair who were unsure how to "descend the mountain with no alpine equipment in rapidly increasing icy conditions" at 4pm on Saturday.
Police said the stranded tourists were "incredibly fortunate" to be alive.
"This would be one of the worst examples I have seen in recent years of day-walkers with inadequate knowledge, equipment and skill, climbing in an alpine environment," Constable Mark Bolton from National Park Police said on Tuesday.
"They are incredibly fortunate that the well-prepared mountaineers were able to render assistance and put the call out for help because I doubt they would have survived the night otherwise."
Members of the Auckland University Tramping Club found the hapless pair and called in emergency services to help them.
Colin Arnott and Jake Clayton were among the rescuers and told AM on Wednesday how they encountered the lost tourists.
Clayton said it was a beautiful, warm day but they had their warm gear packed because they knew how cold it could get at the summit of Mount Ngāuruhoe.
"We had all our warm gear on, we also had backup gear, we had crampons and we each had two ice axes with us, it's very steep. You have to have crampons and ice axes," he said.
Arnott told AM co-host Ryan Bridge they found the pair dressed in hoodies, jeans and sneakers, which "didn't make sense" and was "confusing".
Clayton and Arnott said they found the pair about 2200 metres up, which took them about two hours to climb, so suspected it took the tourists much longer.
They said the conditions where they found the pair were "freezing" and if the tourists spent the night on Mount Ngāuruhoe, it would've been a "death sentence".
"Our initial thought was we need to get these guys off the mountain before the temperatures drop because as the temperatures drop, Ngāuruhoe gets very icy. It's already very dangerous without crampons and an ice axe, once it's icy, it's almost a death sentence," Clayton said.
"So our initial thought was to tell them 'Hey you need to get going', but then we were like, hold up if they fall, there's there is nothing stopping them without an ice axe.
"So we told them to stop. We called search and rescue and just said, 'Hey, this is what the situation is. What do you think the best plan is?' They were like, 'Yes, we're definitely sending a helicopter, we need to get these guys off the mountain.'"
Clayton told AM it took a while to communicate with the pair because of a language barrier, but once they could, he said they were polite and didn't want assistance.
"But obviously we were like, no, no, you need warm clothes, you need food, you need [to be] rescued. They were very oblivious to the danger they were in," Clayton said.
