Windy Tops

Tag: department of conservation

  • More on the Collapsing Hopuruahine Bridge

    Today this video became very noticed in New Zealand media. It shows the moment in early September 2015 when the Hopuruahine Bridge collapsed along the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk, with four people on it. I wrote about this earlier and linked to much of the earlier coverage.

    The latest coverage has been driven by the sudden availability of a video of the accident. This could be compared with when it actually happened, which triggered a short flurry of attention after which it promptly vanished when easy sources of information dried up.

    The incident could easily have been extremely serious, and those involved were very lucky that it wasn’t. With the limited info available at first, potential significance for risks elsewhere, such as other back-country bridges, was high. The build date of the bridge, mid-1990s and roughly the same time as when DOC’s inconsistent building practices produced the Cave Creek Platform death trap, really should have triggered alarm bells of something worth active journalistic investigation. If those bells were ringing, they weren’t acted on.
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  • Collapsing Bridges

    Today’s news about one of the two main support cables of the Hopuruahine Bridge (on a map) giving way, along the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk (radio NZ, Stuff, NZ Herald) should be seen as very concerning. The consequence was that four tourists were dropped eight metres into two metres of water below. With a different set of circumstances (flooded river, shallower or no water, victims being incapacitated on the way down or otherwise unable to swim), the outcome could easily have been far more serious than four people plunging into a river and clambering out with their lives intact. Especially since the Cave Creek accident of 1995, which I wrote about in detail here, this is the type of incident which should never happen if a bridge has been engineered, built and inspected according to the standards by which DOC holds itself under New Zealand law, and yet it’s happened anyway.

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    An asset number tag on the bridge over
    the Waingawa River in the Tararuas,
    outside Cow Creek Hut.
    (Not the bridge in question.)
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    Although the area is jointly managed by DOC and the Te Urewera Board, it’s likely DOC with its expertise and systems which continues to be most directly responsible for monitoring and maintenance of this bridge, as would have been the case until recently anyway. If you look closely at bridges, huts, signs, and nearly anything else significant and artificial that’s administered by DOC, you’ll find a tag with a number. Here’s a photographed example of the tag I passed on a bridge, just last Saturday.

    The number on the tag maps back to the Department of Conservation’s asset tracking system. The system is used to keep track of all of DOC’s structures. It assists with generation of inspection and maintenance programmes for qualified staff to check and verify that all of these structures are up-to-standard, and to record when this inspection and maintenance has been carried out.

    So far, media reports have stated that the bridge in question was most recently inspected in June, three months before this occurred. [Additional: Although Stuff and Radio NZ have both reported the most recent check as having been in June, Mike Slater of DOC stated in a Radio NZ Checkpoint interview that there was an Engineer inspection 18 months ago, a further inspection by a qualified DOC inspector 1 year ago, plus regular observations by DOC staff. The June claim in the Stuff article seems to originate from a statement by the Te Urewera Board which jointly manages the park, but it’s unclear what type of inspection that was.]

    It’s too early to say what the cause is for this to have happened, and whether we should be concerned about any other structures. DOC has already sent a senior engineer to the site to investigate more completely. Possibilities, I suppose, are (a) that an inspector made a mistake, (b) that whatever inspection plan which exists for the bridge was flawed for some reason, (c) that the design of the bridge was fundamentally flawed from the start, (d) that the bridge wasn’t built to its design, or (e) that some kind of vandalism or unforseen serious damage has occurred since the most recent inspection.
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  • 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.

  • Cone Hut trashed by vandals

    I’ve only just written about what a great deal we’re probably getting on looking after our back-country huts for minimal cost given what’s available, but then this is reported:

    A historic hut in the Tararua Range, three hours’ walk from the nearest road, has been trashed, baffling trampers and conservationists.

    “They left it a pig-sty really, we’re really upset,” said Tararua Tramping Club member Barry Durrant, who discovered the “scene of utter vandalism” when arriving at Cone Hut on the Tauherenikau River, west of Greytown, with fellow club member Grant Timlin on Friday.

    A 10-litre can of white acrylic paint, left over from a working bee, had been tipped on the floor, mattresses had been slashed and one dumped in the pool of paint. The hut was strewn with rubbish and the hut book, a vital safety tool, was missing and its case smashed and burnt.

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    Arriving and boiling a billy
    at Cone Hut. (November 2007.)
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    How disappointing.

    Cone Hut, with its unique character and its history, is one of the neatest back-country huts to visit in the Tararua Range. It’s well looked after, both by committed Tararua Tramping Club members and by DOC, on behalf of the public and the hut’s users.

    This is the type of cost that nobody wants to have to pay for, but worse than that is that it’ll be a kick in the guts for many of those people who donated time, effort and expertise so that any others can enjoy and take advantage of the facility.

    I suppose there will always be an element of society who sees this as some kind of victimless crime, or simply doesn’t care. It’s not victimless.

  • Updated Hut Maintenance Figures

    When back-country hut fees increased several years ago, I wrote with some disappointment about how I saw hut fees as being the price of being honest. I still think that, but it’s not something up for negotiation right now.

    Back then, I also tried to compare the expenditure on maintenance of back-country huts with the revenue from back-country hut tickets. This wasn’t fully possible because a DOC accountant told me that spending between regular back-country huts and Great Walk huts couldn’t be separated, despite the user-pays component of the latter not actually coming from back-country ticket and pass sales.

    In other words, the $16.5 million figure for expenditure on “huts” in DOC’s 2009 Annual Report couldn’t be split between two classes of hut which are treated radically differently where maintenance is concerned, and so couldn’t be nicely compared with the user pays revenue streams for those classes of huts. Comparing hut ticket revenue with $16.5 million of expenditure wasn’t very meaningful when the bulk of that spending is probably going to maintenance of huts with user-pays fees sourced elsewhere.

    Lately, in April we had a forum conversation on the NZ Tramper website, and this question of comparison came up again. Trying my luck a second time I fired off an Official Information Act request, and this time it seems to have gone to someone much more helpful. I received the exact figures I asked for. I didn’t bother to ask specifically about expenses on Great Walk and similar huts because they don’t interest me as much, but here are the comparisons for regular back-country hut revenue and expenditure for the last few years.
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  • Unofficial Tracks in Egmont National Park

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    Track Closed signs in Egmont National Park.
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    I hope that some of the quotes in Wednesday’s article via the Taranaki Daily News have been printed incorrectly or out of context.

    In it, a senior DOC ranger, referring to Egmont National Park, comments about people unofficially marking and maintaining old tracks, which DOC no longer officially maintains. Sometimes people even mark new tracks of their own making!

    The problem? Other people might follow them. They might get lost or distracted from DOC’s official tracks. The unofficial routes might not have been routed or maintained to the same safety standards as DOC would have ensured. It might be harder to find people if they get lost, because they’ll be away from the main tracks.

    I have mixed thoughts about this, but mostly dismay with DOC’s apparent stance. There may be issues where people are causing significant damage to the surrounding environment by marking and maintaining their tracks. If people are placing giant markers that are damaging or out of character, or are themselves creating a hazard in ways which rival what the nearby outdoor creates all by itself, then fair enough to raise those specific instances. But beyond this I’m struggling to see an issue with people using and marking alternative routes.
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  • Trespassing from public land

    A story hit the news not long ago, based on a DOC media release (alternative Stuff rendition), where a group of people (labelled ‘hunters’ but better described as a group of dope smoking idiots with guns) have been trespassed from Kaweka Forest Park. It sounds as if they’ve been going in, acting like obnoxious morons and between that breaking a variety of laws and rules in ways that ruin other people’s experience, such as discharging weapons after dark, burying caches of illegal stuff (weapons, cannabis), and so on.

    It doesn’t seem unreasonable to deal with people like this, and the behaviour described isn’t something I want anyone to have to put up with, but one thing that confused me was the reference to Trespass Law.

    The Conservation Act and the National Parks Act essentially guarantee public access to public land, unless it’s closed or access is restricted for a variety of specific reasons that are specified in law. I won’t get into the detail, but a couple of years back I wrote about it all. The result is that DOC can’t simply tell you to get out, at least without certain paperwork which isn’t common: its role is typically one of a caretaker and not a gatekeeper or an owner.
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  • Recap on the recent Milford Track accident – DOC’s Review

    Kathryn Ryan interviewed Allan Munn this morning on Nine to Noon (Radio NZ National). Allan Munn is the Department of Conservation’s Southern Region Services Director. The interview regards changes being made following the death, in May 2014, of a person who was swept away from the Milford Track.

    This morning’s 20 minute interview can be listened to here. It’s also been reported on in The Press, and by Wilderness Magazine.

    The incident which sparked this review occurred when the group were on the Milford Track out of the main tourist season, after many of the standard “Great Walk” style facilities are removed. It’s not uncommon for people to visit outside the booking season, whether to avoid higher hut fees or after having been too late to book at an earlier time. It remains public land with open access, and can be relatively safe with good preparation and advice, and an ability to assess conditions. The group didn’t seem to have been be prepared for the reduced facilities, nor properly aware of it. This combined with other factors probably led to bad decisions and eventually resulted in the accident.

    I wrote down some of my own thoughts about this a few months ago.

    DOC has now completed an internal review. It’s decided that safety processes are fundamentally sound, but certain things could still be improved upon. During the interview Mr Munn noted that DOC had “a range of contacts with that party” prior to the event. The party members either didn’t hear the available advice, or chose to ignore it and take their chances. In the face of this, there’s probably little that could have reasonably and immediately been done in that specific case.

    More generally, though, DOC’s review has acknowledged that there are problems with getting key messages across to the masses in the face of modern forms of media, much of which is out of DOC’s control. It’s also noting higher numbers of visitors of limited skills and experience aiming to walk the Milford Track during the buffer zone between the end of the tourist season and when the most dangerous winter conditions set in.
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  • Signs of the Times

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    Mid King Biv in the Tararua Range.

    On Tuesday a request went out asking for people to point out “loopy rules and regulations”. I ignored it at first, with the politics involved, but soon after Federated Mountain Clubs asked via its Facebook page if this could be applied to some of DoC’s practices with signs in the back-country, especially safety signs.

    I’ve written about the saturation of the back-country with safety signs previously, especially when writing about the Cave Creek Accident of 1995. 14 people died and 4 were seriously injured when a poorly constructed viewing platform collapsed. Many contributing factors were identified, but an underlying theme was that the 8 year old Department of Conservation had never been structured into a coherently functioning entity in many critical respects. This had contributed to design, approval and construction of the completely inadequate viewing platform by people who very possibly weren’t qualified to know that they didn’t know enough about what they were doing, or who had reason to assume that someone other than themselves was in charge. One consequence of the accident and follow-up investigations was a complete shake-up of DOC. In many ways, the outcome of the inquiry has helped to shape the modern back-country experience in New Zealand. An aspect of this shape which was noticed by users of the back-country in the years which followed was the sudden proliferation of signs.

    The above photo demonstrates one of the more extreme cases of this standardisation. Mid King Biv in the Tararua Range is a 2 person shelter, in which it’s impossible to stand up. There’s a single door, which includes a giant FIRE EXIT sign. DOC’s other standard hut signs are also present. The standard DANGER sign warns about proper ventilation when cooking with gas, and another standard sign strongly warns naive visitors that the provided water is probably fine but visitors can choose to treat it if they want to. To rub it in, the “provided” water at Mid King Biv has nothing to do with the hut, and comes from a natural alpine stream nearby.

    DOC’s standard Environmental Care Code sign is also present, but the limited space in the biv for posting signs seems to have resulted in the FIRE EXIT sign being attached directly over the top of it.
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  • The Price of Great Walks

    Last month an incident occurred, out of season, on the Milford Track. I’ll reflect on a few things before getting to it.

    In New Zealand we have an enshrined legal right to enter most parts of the Conservation Estate. (I wrote more about how this works, over here.) By design in law, it’s difficult for people to be fenced out for their protection. In exchange visitors are considered responsible for their own safety. After all, one person’s dangerous place could be another adequately skilled person’s source of adventure.

    Great Walks, however, don’t always fit nicely into this framework. Similar concepts have existed previously, but the modern idea of “Great Walks” began with the Department of Conservation’s effort towards its mandate of fostering recreation. The idea has been to consolidate and market several of the most iconic tramping trips, and make them relatively accessible for a large number of people of varying abilities.

    Over time they’ve become intensively used. By the latter end of the 1990s, booking systems were being introduced to control overcrowding. A booking system can’t restrict anyone’s entry to the land, but tactical limitations of facility use (especially huts), combined with bylaws to disallow camping in certain areas, now makes it impractical to walk some Great Walks without booking ahead.

    The Milford Track is one such Great Walk. In the booking season, between November and May, it becomes a beautifully iconic conveyor belt of tourists. The speed at which you might want to walk it doesn’t matter, because “the track takes 4 days to walk“. This is thanks to the requirement of booking all three huts at once for sequential nights, with these huts being the only legal place to stay. If this doesn’t work for you, you could either search for a way to camp further than 500 metres from the line of the track (difficult with the geography), or run the entire track without stopping.
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