JOHANNESBURG - An intrepid South African mountaineer used ketchup to write a message in the snow Monday, setting up the dramatic rescue of 31 people trapped in the country's highest pub, a report said Tuesday.

Tod Collins trudged through waist-deep snow up the Sani Pass in the Drakensberg Mountains, the country's highest range, to the Sani Top pub, some 2,874 metres (9,480 feet) above sea level.

Some 31 people had been trapped in at the pub in life-threatening conditions by heavy snowfalls since Thursday night, the Johannesburg-based The Star newspaper reported. Collins and a tour-guide, Alan Champkins walked up the steep mountain pass in waist-deep snow with winds blowing up to 55 kph and the temperature dropping to minus 30C (minus 22F).

Perhaps the scariest thing was that the snow was so deep, you couldn't see where the track ended and the cliff began

he told the paper. Upon reaching Sani Top pub, Collins and the trapped tourists stamped down snow and he wrote a huge "H" in diluted tomato sauce on the white background. Shortly afterwards, a air force Oryx (Puma) arrived called in by Collins by using a VHF-radio, plucking everybody to safety.

That tomato-sauce H was excellent, it was like Day-Glo

the helicopter's Lieutenant Steven Lownie said. Day-Glo is a substance used mainly by pilots when ditched in the sea and consists of a bright yellow, red, orange or green dye.

Copyright 2002 AFP & Weatheronline