Windy Tops

Category: update

  • Good insight on river safety

    Earlier today Toni Burgess (aka AntNZ) posted an excellent article about river safety in New Zealand. I’ve written about river safety on this blog in the past, yet Toni’s article, which also draws on expertise from Heather Grady of Outdoor Training NZ, really manages to put some of the less intuitive aspects in perspective.

    For example, on braided rivers:

    …a recent Te Araroa group took the decision to cross the Rangitata River, it took them 2 hours and this river is known to be in full flood with no channels showing within an hour. So essentially you could be half way across the river, finding yourself on a shrinking island of shifting river bed.

    If you spend any time around rivers, or suspect you might in the future, it’s a highly worthwhile read.

  • Election Year 2017

    This year’s been full of political promises around conservation, recreation and tourism. From time to time, over the last few years, I’ve written on DOC funding and spending issues. eg. on tourists and park access fees, on spending versus funding, and on some of DOC’s own comments about its funding.

    I’ve found these discussions tiring, at least in general media, because they tend to be very politically charged when I’d rather be out tramping. The discussions are mostly repetitive, and buried in hypotheticals without detail.

    This changed with the government’s recent declaration that it would charge foreign tourists between 50% and 100% more for hut bookings on Great Walks. There doesn’t seem to have been any obvious consultation to reach this point, other than perhaps monitoring of the ambiguous rage in the social media, or something like that. There was probably always something coming, but it came out of the blue.

    Other parties are suggesting border levies to get more money from tourists and spend it on conservation, or (in the case of the Green Party) a general doubling of DOC’s funding. The public discussion is largely about finding scraps of money for conservation (optimally from someone else) and then throwing it in an approximate direction of conservation in the expectation that something magical might happen, which to me seems to generally be a distraction from discussing some or all of the problems that need solving around the conservation estate.

    Anyway, it’s election year.

    For people who can vote in New Zealand, Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC) has compiled a helpful list of political party responses to questions posed by FMC, regarding their respective conservation policies. The linked page contains summaries of positions, as prepared by FMC. The end of the list has a reference to a PDF with the full responses. If you’re looking for a comparison between party policies then it’s a helpful place to start.

    Alongside this, the NZ Science Media Centre has also quizzed political parties on a variety of issues.

  • Something to listen to

    I’ve not yet read Laurence Fearnley’s Going Up Is Easy, but it’s on my reading list. It’s the biographical account of Lydia Bradey as the first woman to ascend Everest without oxygen, and the only New Zealander to do so.

    Last Monday, Radio NZ began playing a 10 part audio adaptation of her story. It’s narrated by Lydia Bradey herself, and began playing on Monday as a daily part of Kathryn Ryan’s Nine to Noon programme. The episodes will show up here as they become available over the next two weeks.

    Also of interest will be Kathryn Ryan’s interview with Lydia Bradey, from June 2015.

  • The Walking Access Mapping System Goes Mobile

    I’ve recurringly written about the Walking Access Mapping System since it was put online by the Walking Access Commission. The system collates masses of data from local and central goverment. It’s very helpful when trying to figure out places which are legal to walk, especially when physical features don’t always make the divisions between public and private land clear, nor the location of legal roads and access ways.

    wams-Screenshot_2016-03-14-22-58-43

    Earlier today, the Walking Access Commission announced that there’s finally a mobile edition of the WAMS. The announcement doesn’t seem to have received much attention, but I think it’s a valuable extension.

    Until now, the WAMS has been a fairly clunky, Flash-heavy website that’s not entirely easy to use on a mobile device. Exporting information for other devices hasn’t been a trivial thing. For example, it’s generally necessary to manually trace lines and waypoints over the top of the WAMS maps, prior to exporting those lines.

    Hopefully features like the ability to export data will improve over time. Meanwhile, the mobile edition of the WAMS means that it should not even be necessary to export info in many cases. If you’re in a place with mobile coverage, and want to find out which legal access ways are nearby, it’s potentially more a case of pulling out a smartphone, visiting http://www.wams.org.nz/, and seeing what’s around. (Try http://wams.org.nz/wams_mobile/ if your mobile browser is not auto-detected.)

  • Otaki Gorge Road Closed, Also for Foot Access

    Just quickly, for now at least, it looks as if Otaki Gorge Road has been closed. Not just for vehicles due to the usual slip, but also to foot access. At this time, it also appears to be indefinite.

    Alternatively, here’s the announcement from the Kapiti Coast District Council. The latest status of the road can be checked here.

    The reason? New cracks found above when clearing the road from an earlier slip. It won’t be until next year before more detailed survey work can be carried out to determine the scale of the problem.

    This sounds potentially serious and hopefully it doesn’t result in long term blocking of access to Otaki Forks from outside the Tararuas. That entrance is, by a substantial margin, the most major entrance and exit point on the western side of the range.

    [Edit 23-Dec-2015, 5.50pm: Further information from Radio New Zealand Checkpoint.]

  • This coming weekend

    I’ve been struggling to get out lately due to other commitments, and it’s likely to continue for a while longer. This weekend, though, I’m anticipating a short jaunt in the Tararuas with Tongue and Meats, in the vicinity of Mitre and Girdlestone if the weather plays nicely. Last time I visited Mid-King Biv was ages ago. The weather’s uncertain and I’m not sure if that will actually happen, but am looking forward to it regardless. Otherwise it might involve some navigation around Blue Range. I’ll write about it more properly afterwards.

    As some consolation for less tramping I’ve been exploring around Ngaio and Crofton Downs, where I’ve been living since the beginning of this year. Whilst I’m working from a home office lately it’s become a very accessible starting point for quickly escaping suburbia during my lunch break. There are frequent and steep hills available and plenty of native bush and reserves nearby, whether it’s Trelissick Park or Te Ahumairangi Hill (aka the Tinakori Hill), or Otari-Wiltons Bush or the Skyline Walkway, which is up behind where I now live, and noisy gangs of Kaka making themselves known every morning and evening. There have been good opportunities to explore and discover much of what’s around here beyond what I was familiar with last time I lived nearby.

    With the Skyline Walkway I’ve come across several [cough] unofficial but more direct routes up to the ridge, which must nevertheless be frequented by at least a few people given how well defined they are. It’s tempting to go up and trim back some of the gorse, of someone else doesn’t beat me to it. The accessibility’s paying off, too. Several weeks back on July 9th, I was able to hop up immediately when Wellington had one of its colder days for which the western hills received a rare dusting of snow, despite being very near the sea and only 300 metres above sea level.

    IMG_20150709_090459152

    Anyway, tramping this weekend!

  • Positive News for Cone Hut

    Some have probably already seen this, but following my earlier post regarding the vandalism of Cone Hut, Stuff reports that there’s been a positive and concerted effort to repair and restore it to a state better than what it was in previously. Most of the thanks goes to DOC staff and volunteers from the Tararua Tramping Club, and a more direct source of info than Stuff’s report can be found in DOC’s blog.

    This is great, and thanks to everyone involved. The only sadness here is that there was vandalism in the first place. Cone Hut’s unfortunately not the only back-country facility to have suffered vandalism, although its historic status and the way it stands out to many visitors, moreso than some surrounding facilities, seemed to garner a higher than usual amount of attention and discussion.

    Hopefully it’ll be around for another 70 years, with the help of everyone who values it.

  • Good LandSAR Publicity

    This morning’s Dominion Post has some fab publicity for New Zealand’s LandSAR organisation, derived from a couple of recent high profile incidents in the Tararua and Rimutaka Ranges in the lower North Island.

    The first article profiles a couple of people who volunteer their time and expertise to work with Police who usually coordinate their types of searches. The second article describes some of the mechanisms and processes of a systematic LandSAR operation in New Zealand, and a summarised history of how it came to be this way.

    Both make worthwhile reading.

    Various other links of relevance: New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, LandSAR Wellington, Police dog Thames found on High Ridge in the Tararuas, and Runner found in the Rimutaka Range.

  • Searching for accounts of attempts on the Schormann-Kaitoke (SK) traverse of the Tararuas

    Very briefly, I’d like to help propagate a request from my local club (Tongue & Meats), who are looking for the stories of anyone who’s attempted an SK in the last few years.

    The SK is named for Schormanns-Kaitoke, which represents a traverse between the northern and southern ends of the Tararuas. The Shormanns entrance is no longer accessible, so the normal northern point is now considered to be Putara Road.

    In 1997, the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club first published a collection of accounts of SK attempts. The latest of these collections is getting out of date, though, and it’s time for a new, sixth edition.

    Several major variants for the SK exist, but the traditional route is via the Main Range. Going back to the early 1960s there’s been an ongoing challenge within tramping clubs and related communities to complete SK traverses within a weekend. The true believers set themselves a task of completing a full day of work on Friday, as per usual, before they’re allowed to leave to attempt it. 🙂
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  • More comprehensive mountain forecasts

    Very quickly, it’s great to see that, as of today, the Met Service is providing more comprehensive mountain forecasts under its commercial contract with the Department of Conservation. Jacqui Bridges has helpfully detailed the changes in a post on the MetService Blog.

    Also, and I mention this in particular because I think the Tararuas are so awesome, Tararua Forest Park now has its own mountain forecast. Apparently there’s rain coming.