Hiroki Ogawa and partner Nicole Sutton killed after they were caught in high winds on Mount Taranaki Missing climbers die after two days in snow cave on Mount Taranaki in New Zealand. Hiroki Ogawa and Nicole Sutton died after they were trapped in a snow cave for two nights in bitterly cold conditions. THE woman who died on a mountain in New Zealand after being trapped for two nights managed to send a farewell text message to her father before succumbing to the elements with her partner. Japanese man Hiroki Ogawa, 31, and Nicole Sutton, 29, of New Zealand, were part of a group of climbers who reached the summit of Mount Taranaki on Saturday before encountering bad weather on the descent, police said. Two other climbers in the group made it to safety after spending one night on the mountain. Ogawa and Sutton dug themselves into the snow as best they could and had been texting police until Sunday night. But poor conditions prevented rescuers from reaching the pair until early Monday morning. The last contact Keith Sutton had with his 29-year-old daughter, the New Zealand Herald reports, was a text message on Saturday night, several hours after she and Ogawa had burrowed into the snow. Hiroki Ogawa and Nicole Sutton perished in harsh conditions on a New Zealand mountain. Her father replied to the message, and never heard from her again. We knew that Nicole didn't think she'd survive the night based on the texts the night before, and based on her assessment I had no reason to think I knew any better. So this morning [yesterday], I faced the reality that our daughter wasn't with us ... only to find out she was, and then she wasn't. Police said that Sutton was still alive when rescuers reached them but soon became unresponsive. Poor conditions forced rescuers to leave the bodies on the mountain until early this morning when a break in poor weather allowed Alpine Cliff Rescue team members to winch the bodies out. The view of Mount Taranaki from Lake Mangamahoe, New Plymouth. Sutton's parents told reporters they thought the pair would have married one day. Mr Sutton cherished the fact his daughter had been able to speak to the searchers. Anybody who's a parent will know what that's like. But the circumstances in which that occurred, they were good circumstances, with people doing their job and doing the best they could, and we respect the people who have given us information about those brief moments that they had with Nicole," he said. The fact she knew that Hiroki had died was important to me because for a moment, I thought maybe she didn't know what had happened, so that was a relief for me. Ogawa was a research fellow at the University of Auckland's School of Environment.