Windy Tops

Category: musing

  • DoC announces its camping restrictions

    As was noted in this thread in the NZ Tramper forums (thanks madpom), the Department of Conservation has published its list of places where it prohibits “Freedom Camping”. Note that this list only relates to DoC land, and doesn’t include any local authority land on which freedom camping might also be prohibited under the Act.

    This list follows from the enactment of the Freedom Camping Bill, now known as the Freedom Camping Act, and which I’ve posted about previously [1] [2]. Among other things, the Act provides for DoC and for Local Authorities to issue instant fines for people found camping in places where camping has been prohibited or restricted, under the Act, by either DoC or the relevant Local Authority depending on who manages the land.

    As might have been expected, the DoC list is mostly composed of carparks, picnic areas and occasional lookout points, where DoC has supposedly encountered or has good reason to expect problems. This is consistent with the marketed intent of the Bill to give power for authorities to restrict tourist-style camping in problem spots. An odd exception to this list seems to be the inclusion of “Aoraki Mount Cook National Park (except at approved camping sites)”.

    Yes, DoC has actually stated that Freedom Camping is prohibited in The Entire National Park. [Update, 7th October 2011: Some helpful people at DoC have clarified a few things which I’ve noted in this comment.]
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  • Nostalgic Exposure (aka Such a Stupid Way To Die)

    I should have posted about this when it came out, but missed it at the time and have since not had a suitable excuse. I still don’t have one, so I’ll just post it anyway with the expectation that it may be new for some.

    Forty years ago, in 1971, the New Zealand National Film Unit produced this educational video designed to terrify young people with the horrors of “exposure” (aka hypothermia) and, with luck, teach them how to avoid it. I was never subjected to this film during my educational years, but as recently as 1997, some schools were reportedly still petrifying their youth with the words:

    “Thomas Cougan will tomorrow night be DEAD!”

    Two years ago, NZOnScreen digitised the film and put it online. (There’s a press release here.) Happily the entire thing is available for all to see, from mountain mules, disgusting breakfasts and fashion of the late hippie era, to a relatively young Ray Henwood who draws concise diagrams on a blackboard as he expertly pronounces the symptoms and causes of “exposure”.

    The digitisation comes in two parts, followed by the credits. (Part Two is below if you’ve clicked into the full post, or you can just wait for Part One to finish.)

    http://www.nzonscreen.com/nzonscreen-player.swf

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  • That Freedom Camping Thing (Part 2)

    Following my post a few weeks ago regarding the Freedom Camping Bill (yuck! I hate that name!), I’ve finally gotten around to authoring my submission. Submissions are due on June 29th so if you have anything to say, you’ll need to be quick. You can submit directly online by following this link, and I think it’d be great if anyone with an interest did so. (I really don’t care if you agree with me or not, I just think it’s important that people’s views get considered.) You can view the Bill online at the New Zealand Legislation website.

    I’ve included my submission in the rest of this post. It was something of a rush job in the end, and I re-wrote about two thirds of it this evening having given myself a few more days to think. I hope it came out okay. [Update 7.55pm, 28-6-2011: There were a few grammatical and cut/paste errors towards the end that really annoyed me, so I made some small changes and resubmitted. Hopefully they’ll take the revised one instead.]

    Freedom Camping Bill Submission

    A submission for the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider in relation to the Freedom Camping Bill.

    This submission is based on the Freedom Camping Bill at its first reading.

    Thanks for the opportunity to submit on the Freedom Camping Bill.  I think the intent of the Bill is a good one, in that it aims to give local authorities and DoC the practical ability to police their own bylaws. That said, I also think some parts of the Bill need careful reconsideration.

    The concerns I raise relate to how current wording of the Bill might affect back-country tramping and (in particular) tramping clubs that presently spend some time camping on road-sides. This is despite the Bill’s introductory text which claims that it does not target back-country users. I also believe the wording includes some inconsistencies which should be clarified.
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  • That Freedom Camping Thing

    “Freedom Camping” is a term that’s been around for about as long as New Zealand’s been a popular international backpacking tourist destination. Along with its sibling term “Freedom Tramping”, the two typically refer to camping or tramping without the structure of a camp-ground or a guided walking company.

    I really hate both terms. The “freedom” prefix implies that camping and tramping aren’t already free and independent things to do. Camping and tramping were free and independent long before tour operators and journalists decided to explicitly label them as such, as if independence was a more novel thing than paying thousands of dollars to have a multi-day guided tour in an area that’s completely free to enter courtesy of New Zealand citizens. I’d much prefer that camping was camping and tramping was tramping, and that the operators and journalists could have adopted a novel term for what they do rather than what everyone else does. “Premium-priced guided walking” would have worked. Whatever.

    Sadly one of my two pet hate terms is about to be formalised into New Zealand Law, thanks to the incoming Freedom Camping Bill 2011, which was introduced to parliament a couple of weeks ago. Without this Bill being passed it’s only been possible for local authorities and for the Department of Conservation to pursue the annoying breed of Freedom Campers through courts, which is often far less practical than simply handing out fines (like parking tickets), and so its progression is much to the joy of a lot of local body authorities who should soon be able to police their areas more effectively. DoC and Internal Affairs published a joint Regulatory Impact Statement with reference to the Bill, which can be read here.

    It’s likely that the Bill will be pushed through fairly quickly because the government is keen to get it in before hoards of freedom-seeking transients arrive from overseas for November’s Rugby World Cup. Scanning through the text of the Bill, it seems unlikely that this law change will strongly affect back-country tramping experiences, but there’s some crossover potential and a few things to be aware of, perhaps even concerned about, which I’ve listed below.
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  • PLBs and SPOT Beacons

    I’ve found it interesting to read about the search in the Waitewaewae catchment area of the Tararuas over the weekend. Summarised, a police officer was overdue when setting up a SaR exercise which had been intended for next weekend. He and his dog were reported overdue at 9pm, about 10 search teams went in the following day, a location signal was received at 2.40pm, and an Air Force Iroquois winched him and his dog out of dense bush shortly afterwards. It turned out that his intended route had been taking longer than estimated, being very wet and with lots of tree-fall. Despite being relieved to be lifted out, he’d be prepared to be stuck for longer.

    What I find most interesting is the media’s reporting of his use of a “Spot-Me” device, although I think it’s far more likely that they meant to say he was using a SPOT Beacon. (Google tells me that a “Spot-Me” device would be a kind’a dumb thing to take into the Tararuas.) The technology in use is interesting because whilst PLBs and SPOT Beacons both report positions and can be used for locating a person, they work differently and are generally intended for different purposes.

    Unfortunately the reporting’s been unclear and inconsistent about exactly what technology was in use here, but it seems clear that a SPOT Beacon was in use, although a Herald article from this morning specifically states that he also had a “Personal Locator Beacon”, which probably means a 406 MHz Personal Locater Beacon (PLB), the current standard for requesting a rescue. Some sources (such as that article) state that both beacons were activated on Friday night despite no signal being received until the following afternoon, whereas other sources (such as this article from the DomPost) state that the “Personal Locator Beacon” wasn’t activated until Saturday afternoon. [Edit: Thanks to Heather, there’s now a more complete and detailed description of the sequence of events in the comment thread below.]

    Whatever actually happened, it’s a nifty excuse to discuss the differences between a SPOT Beacon, and a 406 MHz PLB. SPOT Beacons are sometimes touted as drop-in replacements for PLBs, but they’re really not. Despite having learned informally, I’m not an expert on the differences between these two devices, so if anyone notices any errors or omissions in what’s below, please feel welcome to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to correct things. (In this respect, thanks Craig.)
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  • A little about fundamental legal access to conservation land

    I have to mention just how glad I am that New Zealand parks aren’t subject to the same kind of bureaucratic mess that seems to have been occurring with National Parks throughout the USA over the past few days. In short, the US Congress has been having trouble reaching agreement on the budget, meaning the Federal Government may have needed to shut down for lack of funding. Among many other things, this suddenly put the immediate future of 394 National Parks throughout the USA is in doubt, along with all employees, the businesses and surrounding communities that relied on them. Thankfully this bureaucratic mess has been averted with an emergency budget now having been passed, but it wouldn’t have been unprecedented for such a shutdown to go ahead. Similar shutdowns occurred in 1995 and 1996.

    The USA’s a big place, and I imagine the real consequences vary from state to state, but I’m fairly sure that for fundamental legal reasons (detailed below), this kind of park closure crisis couldn’t easily happen in New Zealand at all.

    Some local examples of the USA’s National Park problems include:
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  • Ngauruhoe Rock Falls

    There’s been a story in the news lately about a chap walking on Ngauruhoe having been struck by a boulder coming down the mountain, despite trying to dodge it, and having a broken leg. As Stuff points out, it probably could have been worse if he’d not seen it coming.

    What I found at least as interesting was the last three paragraphs in that article which note that there have been three similar incidents on Ngauruhoe since November. All required helicopter rescues and two involved head injuries. The head injuries were probably (and I’m guessing) as a consequence of people falling and hitting heads rather than directly having had rocks falling onto heads from above.

    What the article doesn’t touch on is the source of the rocks that caused the injuries.
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  • FMC Bulletins now available online

    Something I meant to write about a few months back (but became distracted) is the recent achievement of Federated Mountain Clubs in managing to get all of its FMC bulletins online, and available for download, all the way back to FMC Bulletin 1 of May 1957, when then-President Bill Bridge introduced the newsletter almost as an anti-climax.

    As of late last year, all older bulletins have been scanned from paper to PDF form, and the current online archive now contains 182 issues and is growing.

    The archive is available here, and a complete downloaded collection of bulletins from the beginning amounts to approximately 360 Megabytes. Most of the older bulletins are only photo-scanned at this time and thus aren’t text searchable with regular tools, but it’s still a great resource.

    This is awesome. It’s a great history of many things back-country in New Zealand, and browsing through the bulletins I’ve found it interesting to compare what made the issues of the day (mining, roads, dams, fears of user pays with Rogernomics and the new Department of Conservation, support for the re-naming of Mt Taranaki), and how the style has changed over the years. Accident Reports, for instance, were once presented in a somewhat more direct way (often naming names) than today’s bulletin’s Back-Country Accidents section.

    There’s a lot to get through, and I think the lasting benefit of this will be a large library of information on back-country issues now being more easily available when researching past events.

  • Remembering the LandSAR Yeti

    I guess it’s partly a consequence of not watching much TV (too much tramping) which meant that I never caught this advertisement for Land Search & Rescue when it came out in about July 2009 — so apologies to everyone for whom this is old news.

    I’m not entirely sure what the purpose is. It’d be great for raising awareness of LandSAR and hopefully attracting volunteers, but the advertisement seems to be specifically aimed at people who might get into trouble as opposed to attracting LandSAR volunteers. People in trouble probably don’t need to know that LandSAR exists so much as the Police, who’d then call in LandSAR and volunteers when needed. I suspect that if there was money allocated towards resolving outdoor accidents (without the charity bias), LandSAR wouldn’t have had a mention and the money would have been aimed at encouraging people to be safe in what they do in the first place, and then to know that the Police are the ones to go to first when there’s a problem.

    Still, it’s a treat to watch and kind’a neat. Kudos to LandSAR and to the people who made it.

    Thanks to davidm in the NZ Tramper forums for bringing it to my attention. As was later pointed out in that thread (by mrfizz), the ad was made pro-bono by Colenso BBDO with the help of Weta Workshop, and then given free airtime on TVNZ, so it’s not exactly money out of LandSAR’s budget.

    In addition to the ad itself, there’s a 2 part behind-the-scenes video, also up on Youtube, that describes the making of the commercial, about 16 minutes total:

  • Drawing a line with daywalk safety

    I’ve been following the recent story in the news about a man who spent a night in the Tararuas, ill-equipped. He’d planned to walk around a loop within a day, apparently near the northern end. For some reason, reportedly cloud, he became lost, and eventually ended up coming out the other side of the range. From the description, he appears to have had only light clothing, and not much else within a small daypack. He was fortunate on this occasion, but it got me thinking.

    Sometimes it can be a thin line between having a great day out and a potentially serious accident. As with any overnight or longer excursions, all sorts of things could occur that might prevent a person on a daywalk from reaching an intended destination. It’s common with overnight tramping to have safety plans such as alternative routes and back-up shelter, or at least give the environment and terrain more respect. I think such considerations are often overlooked with daywalks, especially with the temptations to cut weight and volume, and fit things into a smaller and less encumbering day-pack.

    All this said, it’s not too unusual for same-day trips to be treated differently, or somehow less likely to result in problems, even though the amount of safety equipment being carried is typically much less than a multiple-day excursion. I guess it’s the same decision making logic that causes people not to bother taking portable shelter when the plan is to stay in a back-country hut, as per The Hut Fallacy. Presumably, the man described in the news didn’t seriously consider that a mis-hap could occur and he might not make it out on the same day. Maybe he’s done the same thing 100 times before—plenty of people have favourite walks of a similar nature, and nearly every occasion they’ll have no problems. If this is the case, though, he’s not alone in making that judgement.
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