WHEN John Kazanas saw the bright yellow tent, still partly covered in snow, he knew something wasn’t right.
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Normally, you’d clear your tent, keeping the snow off and your site visible.
Mr Kazanas, from Melbourne, was one of the first walkers to stumble upon the abandoned tent at Michell’s Hut belonging to missing snowboarders Daniel Kerr and Martin Buckland.
Two other walkers about an hour ahead of him had discovered it first, he said, and had told him that most of the tent was buried in snow when they arrived.
Inside they had found jackets and sleeping bags, but there were no footprints nearby.
“There was no sign of these guys,” he said.
Mr Kazanas is no stranger to the high country — he’s visited Mount Bogong at least once a year for the past 12 years and used it in his training to climb Mount Everest in Nepal.
As such, he’s familiar with what Mr Kerr and Mr Buckland would have faced and the need for utmost caution.
“Up to Michell’s Hut it’s not too bad, but above it is pretty extreme,” he said.
“There’s a lot of ice up in the gullies and you really need to be very, very careful.
“An avalanche can catch you short.”
He described the scene atop the mountain yesterday as “very sad”.