Category: musing

Huts: Untold stories from back-country New Zealand, by Mark Pickering (review)

This is the second book I’ve read by Mark Pickering, the first having been A Tramper’s Journey, which I liked (the review is here). He’s written many books, and this is a topic that Mark Pickering is especially suited to, having a strong interest in huts and having visited over 1000 back-country huts already. His latest book was released in time for Christmas 2010. Huts: Untold stories from back-country New Zealand retails for $50, or $49.99 if you take the effort to shop around.

Production quality is generally nice, with good authoring and editing, although see my comment below about printing. This book is very heavy. It’s a paperback, but don’t let that fool you. It’s 384 big pages on good, glossy paper. Large numbers of photographs, often using half a page at a time, ensure the text isn’t too dense and the reading remains quite easy. Reading one or more chapters in a short sitting is very feasible. The weight and dimensions mean it’s not the sort of book that would typically be stuffed into a pack for weekend reading, except by people who like to show off.

Background

The title suggests that this is a book about huts. It is, but it’s even more-so a book about the history of the back-country, and how all of the 1000—1500 back-country huts (the exact number depends on one’s criteria for counting) came to be. The blurb on the back of the book begins with “If huts could talk, they could tell the whole history of the back-country”, and this is a good summary of what you’ll find inside. It’s a history built around the structures which, today, are mostly used for recreation.
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21 December, 2010
Terminal faces

Radio New Zealand has the most detailed online report I can find about the coroner’s recommendations that follow the January 2009 accident where two Australian tourists died under the collapsing terminal face of Fox Glacier.

The Coroner has recommended “restricted access” to the Fox, and possibly the Franz Joseph Glacier terminal faces, suggesting a new law and measures such as instant fines for people who get too close without a guide or some kind of official authorisation. So far the Department of Conservation has said it’ll consider the recommendations, but needs to discuss them with the Minister of Conservation. It’s already made changes to the signage, and worked with tourism operators to increase awareness with members of the public of the danger around glaciers.

What this recommendation seems to be suggesting is that legal restrictions against approaching the terminal face of Fox Glacier, and possibly Franz Joseph Glacier, should be put in place because those parts of the New Zealand Conservation Estate have been made so accessible, and because many people (informed or not) hop the recommended safety barrier.

It’s a terrible thing for all concerned when accidents like this occur, but I agree with Richard Davies, the President of Federated Mountain Clubs, who is strongly speaking out against what the coroner has asked for. Some of his comments are relayed through the first link at the top of this post. Richard is right when he points out that imposing legal restrictions for access would set a dangerous precedent. If such restrictions can be put around the terminal face of Fox Glacier, what’s to stop them from going elsewhere, and where does it stop? Would we see restrictions in something like walking up to the Crater Lake of Ruapehu, also popular with tourists, just in case the volcano burps again as it did in 2007? Why is it fair to issue fines to people who choose to take these kinds of risks, and how is that reliably enforced without missing scores of people acting silly for the wrong reasons, yet catching people who break the rules whilst being suitably careful?
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3 December, 2010
Commemorative feature naming and South Ridge

I’m not too surprised that there’s reported resistance to renaming South Ridge on Aoraki Mount Cook to be Hillary Ridge. The official proposal and request for submissions by the New Zealand Geographic Board, complete with a report of considerations and policies on applying names, is viewable here.

Ed Hillary did some awesome things, both in mountaineering and outside it. He held some strong viewpoints and didn’t hit it off with everyone, but he did much more with his life and influence than simply be in the first climbing team to reach the top of Everest. I think there’s little doubt that many people are much better off than they’d probably otherwise be. As for the naming of a feature after him, I’m not so sure.
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17 November, 2010
Spooky Friday

It’s lacking in plot, and provides no explanation of this “Fred” person who’s suddenly been inflicted upon the protagonist. I don’t rate the narrative aspect of this novel highly.

On the other hand, consider the correct use of full stops, apostrophes and capitalisation, as well as impressive adherence to keeping between the lines. Visible evidence of text erasure also shows the author’s commitment to appropriate spacing between words, despite battling with his own impatience to express ideas. Added together these elements ensured a star-spangled reception from the public.

6/10.

7 November, 2010
Tararua Adventure Guide, by Jonathan Kennett (a few thoughts)

The Tararua Adventure Guide, by Jonathan Kennett, was recently published in August 2010 by the Kennett Brothers. It’s available in a bunch of places such as outdoor shops, probably some bike shops given who’s publishing it, a few online bookstores if you search around, and allegedly good book shops. (I couldn’t find it in the likes of Whitcoulls or Borders, but no surprises there.) It cost me about $21.25 after an FMC affiliation discount, and for that I got a 152 page paperback handbook, including a 3 page index. The price was right!

Bivouac in Wellington was sold out when I first visited to snap up a copy during September, but they had another shipment coming in the next day, and sure enough about 10 copies were displayed on the counter a day later. I guess it’s been a popular book. This should be expected because the Tararuas are on Wellington’s doorstep, and there’s not been much of an attempt at a decent route guidebook for ages, possibly not since Merv Rodgers’ Tararua Footprints of 1996. Please post a comment below if you think I’ve missed a recent good one in the past 15 years. I’ve not been on the scene long enough to be sure.

An unlikely twist to my purchase was that I’d only just managed to track down my own copy of the 1996 Tararua Footprints about a week earlier, after several years of trying. The reason for this lack of guides that specifically target the Tararuas is probably the relatively localised market that is the greater Wellington region combined with the small proportion of people who often get into the outdoors to the extent of being able to benefit from such a guide. Few people beyond the lower North Island would buy such a book, and it’s a risk for a publishing company to run off the thousands of copies likely to be needed just to break even. The initial print run is 2000 copies, which is probably on the low side for most publishers. The Kennett Brothers have a recent history of publishing books to similar localised and niche markets, especially around mountain biking, so my guess would be that they’re probably in a better position to understand the audience and distribution channels, and could manage the risk better than less specialised publishers.

About the book

The Tararua Adventure Guide is a description of all the main things to do in the Tararua Range. It’s not restricted to tramping, and is more of an adventure guide as the title suggests. The author has filled about a third of the book with “classic tramps” of the Tararuas, and another quarter towards the end with additional popular tramps and less common routes. The rest is filled with ideas for short walks and daytrips, several good river explorations, a single canyoning adventure (Chamberlain Creak), a few pages on mountain runs and mountain bike rides, and two pages about hunting and fishing opportunities. That last one is more as an explanation than a guide for hunters, and only a paragraph of the section is actually about fishing. The book has photographs scattered throughout, as well as brief history notes here and there, helping to give a better feel for the areas being described.
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30 October, 2010
Tragedy near Kime Hut, part 3
Also see Tragedy near Kime Hut and Tragedy near Kime Hut, part 2.

Amelia recently pointed me at a lengthy feature article in last Saturday’s Dominion Post, which expresses a detailed investigation of what happened when two people died in a blizzard near Bridge Peak in the Tararuas, prior to reaching Kime Hut in July 2009. The article is online, courtesy of Stuff:

Lost: how tramp turned to tragedy

The article uses sources such as the Police inquest file, witness statements and various SAR resources. The author’s also filled in some gaps with likely presumptions. It’s more detailed than regular news articles, and worth a read.

This incident has been covered a lot in various places on this blog, beginning with:
- Tragedy near Kime Hut and
- Tragedy near Kime Hut, part 2.
Discussions that relate to the incident also exist under:
- The Hut Fallacy and
- The Next Three Hours.
28 October, 2010
Drive-by idiots with bright lights and loaded firearms in the Kaimanawas

Some things can really make you angry. On Friday night I was bivvying out at a Department of Conservation road-side camp-site in the Kawekas, anticipating a great long weekend (which we had, more to come later). Having come up from Wellington we arrived a little before midnight, and were completely ignorant that this was happening just a short distance away at a similar camp-site over the range in the Kaimanawas.

We eventually heard about the shooting via sketchy gossip on the mountain radio service on Sunday morning. Early reports suggested that a hunter had shot a woman cleaning her teeth at a river outside a hut. Later a rumour came through that not only had the shooter failed to identify what he was shooting at, the hut’s chimney was even visible from the position of the shooter, which should have made it obviously silly to be shooting near there at all. This translated into angry sarcastic chit-chat on the radio. By last night when I’d arrived home, more correct information had begun to emerge about just how reckless and stupid these guys were. Unfortunately they’re not alone, they just happened to be the ones to hurt someone.

Want a picture? Because this one from the Herald on Sunday (pdf) more or less sums it up. Eventually the courts will reveal the facts of the case and if there’s reason to do so I’ll take this back, but right now it seems that what happened here really is disgusting.
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26 October, 2010
GPSs, Compasses and Navigation

Back in July, I wrote something about reports of a quick and painless helicopter rescue of a couple of people who’d become lost on Quoin Ridge, and especially how it was reported that they were in trouble due to a failure of their GPS. The point I was really trying to make was that the way it was reported, through propagation of a couple of simplified press releases that stated limited facts without analysis, implicitly validated reliance on a GPS as an acceptable way of avoiding getting lost, not to mention a cellphone as a rescue alert device, even though neither of these things is great to rely on. (I have no idea whether the reports accurately reflect what actually happened.)

Reading about the incident, probably because of how it was reported, had me thinking more about why I don’t really trust GPSs in the outdoors. Actually, it’s not so much that I don’t trust a GPS as that I don’t think they naturally encourage a really good navigation sense as well as a map and compass can.

I bought a GPS about a year ago, primarily for keeping track of where I’ve been. I usually just leave it switched on in the top of my pack, and it works very well. At the time, I expressed some concern that I might be less motivated to practice navigation skills. And yeah, I’ve used the GPS from time to time to get positions, but a year later I feel better about it, I think because I know I’ve also been improving my general navigation skills at the same time. It’s augmenting what I was already doing but not replacing it, and I’ve never felt as if I’m relying on a GPS and that I’ll be trapped or in deep trouble if it suddenly switched off.
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6 October, 2010
A quick reference online New Zealand topo-map

If you’re sitting in front of a computer right now (very likely) and just want to zoom around New Zealand’s topo maps, you could check out Gavin Harris’s New Zealand Topographic Map website.

Gavin’s stitched together all of the current Topo50 maps from Land Information New Zealand, into a big giant topo map of New Zealand. It’s now available through a handy zoomable and scrollable web browser interface similar to a simplified Google Maps but instead with good topo maps of New Zealand. It’s very handy for quick reference of what’s in an area without having to pull out big paper maps, and it’s easy to send around links to specific areas on the map. For instance, here’s the area around the Holdsworth/Jumbo Loop which is one of the most popular weekend tramps in the Tararuas.

Gavin’s website follows the LINZ removal of it’s NZ Topo Online service, which it no longer considered necessary now that it’s providing downloads of all its Topo maps in various static formats.

Update, 30th August: Coincidentally launched at about the same time, there’s now also another very similar service called NZ Topographic Maps that’s just been made available, by Reuben Williams of Seagull Web Design. The latter service utilises Google Maps, and paints NZ Topographic maps over the top.

28 August, 2010
Environmental externalities from Mining in New Zealand (unverified notes)

With everything happening lately regarding opening up (or not) land listed in Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act to mining, and with me being someone who likes getting outdoors, I’ve been keen to find some vaguely objective information about effects of mining on the surrounding environment. On July 21st I went to a public presentation by Professor Dave Craw, of the Geology Department at Otago University, and the director of the Environmental Science programme there. It’s part of a series of winter lectures being hosted by Otago University in Auckland and Wellington. Given his background, Professor Craw seems to be in a good position to comment on the topic of mining in New Zealand with some scientific authority. He’s been cited in the news a few times on this topic (example 1, example 2).

Later in this post, I’ve reproduced the notes I took during Professor Craw’s presentation. It’s not authoritative coming from me. As interested as I am in comprehending things on a level that transcends what’s most easily available through polarised press releases, I’m not a geologist and I’ve not been involved in New Zealand’s mining industry. My note-taking skills from a one hour public lecture are nothing compared with various other people’s years or decades of working with or researching this stuff, so please use these notes as an approximate guide only.
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3 August, 2010