Wānaka Detective and Wānaka LandSar member Alan Lee said the increase was "pretty normal", with about 90% of annual rescues occurring between October and April.
"The visitors are increasing, the climbing season has arrived and the volunteers are having a lot of training at the moment."
There have been at least eight rescues in the last month, including two from Mount Aspiring, one from the Cascade Saddle and one at Timaru Creek.
Two weeks ago, the team carried out a river rescue at Fantail Falls, near Haast Pass, after people were held up by the rising Haast River and were helped across to the carpark.
The national Rescue Coordination Centre had also resolved several beacon-activated events without involving police, Det Lee said.
As more PLBs were coming on stream, the dynamic of what Sar did was changing, he said.
In previous years, Sar could spend several days looking for people, but now they could resolve reports within hours.
While police and Sar had regularly pushed the PLB message, Det Lee still thought there was room for improvement in planning and preparation.
"People have to do necessary checks of the weather, tell people where they are going and understand their capabilities."
Det Lee agreed there had been cases when, for some, the PLB was the only fallback they had or they felt if they could not cope, they could just ring a helicopter.
"There are cases like that and people can foresee when they are going to be in harm’s way. We accept there will be cases every year when a person will be rescued because they have cramp.
"That has happened and will continue to happen, but that is not the normal."
Providing help to cross the river at Fantail Falls was not uncommon, he said.
Sar often checked on people reporting they were trapped because it was not possible to know exactly what tired people might be thinking after descending from Mt Armstrong or Mt Brewster, Det Lee said.
"It is a classic situation where people are fixated on that they are just over the river, a stone’s throw away is safety, but they don’t know the dynamic of that river.
"The Sar team is very happy to go up there and help people across because just around the corner from Fantail Falls is the Gates of Haast gorge, which is unsurvivable."
Det Lee said he was keen to give the Sar volunteers a big shout out in the leadup to Christmas and the new year, because when they were called out, it was at the expense of family time, jobs and holidays.
The volunteers were not rostered on duty over the summer holidays.
The police just caught them as they could whenever there was a report of someone in trouble, he said.
