Neatly-placed boots and a body downstream: Wānaka tramper's mystery death

A coroner investigating the case of tramper Stephanie Simpson has been unable to unravel the mystery of her 2020 death.

The 32-year-old had placed her tramping boots neatly next to each other on the side of a creek in the Pyke River Gorge, near Wānaka.

Several days later her body was found drowned 800m downstream.

Coroner Alexander Ho, police and the authors of a Mountain Safety Council (MSC) report thought it most likely she slipped or tripped into the water and drowned, a coroner’s report released publicly on Thursday says.

However, there was insufficient evidence to determine the sequence of events, the coroner found.

Simpson was a British national who had worked in Wānaka as a landscape gardener since October 2019.

She was extremely fit and an experienced tramper, the report says.

On February 8, 2020, she drove to the beginning of the Brewster Track, which leads to Brewster Hut in Mt Aspiring National Park north of Wānaka, and walked to the hut.

She was wearing a Garmin GPS watch and data showed she took less than two hours to reach the hut. The usual time allowed by Department of Conservation (DOC) to complete the track is three hours.

Simpson’s watch showed she had a 26-minute break at the hut before heading towards Mt Armstrong at 1.09pm.

But rather than continuing up to the summit of Mt Armstrong, she began to contour towards the Brewster Glacier.

She turned around before reaching the glacier but started walking on a different route, heading down the steep upper headwall of Pyke Creek and dropping into the valley.

Her pace slowed in the valley and her watch indicated she had been in the area for about two hours when, at 6.05pm, her watch stopped tracking.

“The reason for this is unknown but could include her watch being turned off, running out of battery, losing signal or being submerged in water,” the report says.

A police search and rescue operation began on February 11.

Simpson’s neatly placed boots were later found next to the creek and on February 14 her pack was found by a helicopter search crew about 900m downstream from her boots.

A specialist canyon rescue team found her body submerged in swift running water, about 1.5m below the surface, in a steep sided gorge in Pyke Creek.

It was about 800m from her boots and 1.5km from the last location on her watch.

A pathologist found Simpson drowned and had injuries consistent with a fall, but it was not known how she came to be in the Pyke Creek gorge.

A MSC report suggested possible reasons included a conscious decision to explore Pyke Creek, a navigation error or medical condition, or an injury.

Fatigue and hypothermia were not considered factors as she had a strong fitness level and sufficient food and water. The weather was dry and not particularly windy.

Simpson was wearing socks when she was found, suggesting it was more likely she fell into the water at or near where her boots were placed, the coroner said.

One explanation was that after being in the gorge for some time she stopped to rest and took her boots off to relieve pressure on her feet.

She may have approached the water and slipped on or tripped over a rock, possibly in declining daylight, and fell into the water where she was knocked unconscious and swept downstream.

DOC’s website and on-site safety information for Brewster Track was reviewed after Simpson’s death, and a new warning sign was installed at Brewster Hut informing visitors the area beyond the hut could be hazardous.