There are about 30 searchers in the Avoca Valley who have already started moving out to continue the search for a 24 year old missing hunter.
About 12 spent last night at Avoca Hut which is about 15km from the base camp.
The weather this morning is cold, light winds but high winds expected. There were NW winds overnight but the team managed to install VHF radio repeaters to assist with providing 'steady communications".
"It started off clear," says Snr Constable Phil Simmonds. "However it is already beginning to cloud on the tops."
The Alpine Face Rescue team from Christchurch will join the group this morning. A Defense Force Iroquois is also expected at 10am to assist in deploying search teams to the various areas to be searched.
The Face Rescue team will search a gorge which drops to a river where a person could have slipped and been hurt.
Snr Constable Simmonds says that the hunter's intentions were quite clear. He intended to go to Morraine Flat, a rocky basin at the head of the valley.
"We'll be closely searching this area," he said this morning..
The 24 year old man who went hunting up the Avoca Valley, beyond, Lake Coleridge, with his fiancée in the weekend. She stayed at the hut while he went shooting. He was due to return on Sunday evening but as they had agreed, she waited until Monday noon before calling for help.