He made his call after successfully retrieving injured German tramper Felix Ferkau (20) from a Cascade Saddle accident black spot yesterday afternoon.
Mr Dickson, a professional mountain guide with international experience, said Mr Ferkau's party of four - two from Germany, one from France and one from Sweden - had "pushed on" with their decision to go up the saddle on Tuesday night in the face of bad weather when they should have realised the conditions were unsuitable for camping.
The party left from Aspiring Hut on Tuesday, camped on the saddle overnight and were returning to the hut the next morning when Mr Ferkau slipped on wet snowgrass and tumbled about 50m down a steep slope, seriously gashing his right leg and possibly breaking a wrist.
Mr Dickson commended Mr Ferkau's companions for the way they helped their friend and raised the alarm.
They put Mr Ferkau into a sleeping bag and calmed him down.
Two men then descended to the hut to raise the alarm by radio, while a third man waited with him.
The party's did not have the right gear for the rough, stormy night they endured on Tuesday night, Mr Dickson said.
"In hindsight, if there's a message.., [it is] read the forecast, don't take cotton gear, use polyprop or wool and take a decent tent."
There was a "massive difference" between European and New Zealand storms, Mr Dickson said.
He suggested an inbound flight education campaign encouraging tourists to go to the Department of Conservation and to check weather forecasts.
The wind was still gusting about 35 knots, or 60kmh, when the search party went into Mt Aspiring National Park about noon yesterday and the helicopter retrieval was "quite tricky", Mr Dickson said, He praised Aspiring Helicopters pilot James Ford for his skills.
"You are getting all this air dumping over the face, which is really ugly when doing the fly-in," Mr Dickson said.
It was too windy to do a strop rescue, so Mr Ford dropped the retrieval teams on the track and waited at the hut until he was needed again.
A volunteer team comprising builder Glen Sherson, lawyer Dave Brent, paramedic Rod Walker and Mr Dickson carried Mr Ferkau about 100m on a stretcher through rugged terrain to a spot where it was safe to load him into the helicopter.
Mr Ferkau was then flown to the Wanaka Medical Centre for treatment, while his companions were walking out last night.
