Windy Tops

Tag: federated mountain clubs

  • 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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  • Re-living The Sutch Search (Part 3 of 3)

    Following from part one and part two.

    “It is, therefore, reasonable that the actions of Trampers who become—or are believed to be—lost should be thrown open to examination, and, if necessary, to criticism. When a party that was expected to return in about three days does not return for about fifteen days, and then says, it was “never lost,” a difficult precedent is created.”

    —The Evening Post, 1st May 1933.
    From Evening Post, Issue 100, 1 May 1933, Page 10 (additional):
    RECALL OF SEARCHERS
    A LONG PROCESS

    It is expected that it will be several days before all the searchers can he recalled. A party consisting of Messrs. H. Anderson, B. McGregor, and W. E. Davidson, of the Tararua Tramping Club, and Mr. F. A. McNeil, of the Radio Emergency Corps, left Wellington yesterday for the mountain house, and will remain there until the withdrawal of the search parties has been completed.

    About thirty-five members of the Tararua Tramping Club and a number of others belonging to kindred clubs are still on the ranges, and arrangements have been made with the Railway Department for trains to sound three blasts on their whistles between Otaki and Levin on the west side and Carterton and Masterton on the east side as an indication to the searchers that they should return. It is stated that train whistles can be heard from almost any point on the ranges under normal circumstances.

    About 150 trampers have taken part in the search. Most of them belong to the Tararua Club, the other clubs represented being Paua, Victoria College, Hutt Valley, Levin-Waiopehu, Manawatu, Carterton, Wairarapa, and Masterton.

    The four missing people were finally safe, but a lot of cleaning up and analysis was still to be done. It took about three days for the last search party to return from the range, but criticism of the group began immediately, firstly in an editorial context on the same day in which their return was reported, and then with additional criticism from members of the public, fanned by the media. At least one searcher had sustained an injured foot, potentially serious in the back-country of the 1930s, and this at the very least highlighted that those who obliged others to search for them can put those people at risk. Comments that had been made on a whim by the rescued party about “never being lost” were now being taken out of context, and were received by some as insulting.

    Fred Vosseler, who’d played a large part in organising the search effort, made comments while wearing his authoritative hat as President of the recently formed Federated Mountain Clubs organisation, publicly criticising virtually everything the group was reported to have done. In a war of written words waged through letters to the editor, his criticism provoked responses from the party members, who claimed that he’d been mis-led by media reports and inaccurate assumptions about their situation.

    Eventually the arguments died down and fell out of the media, and what followed was a larger analysis, now beginning to be recorded in minutes of meetings and annual reports, of how the search effort had worked and what needed to be improved upon and done differently before there was need for another search of a similar nature. The structure for New Zealand’s largely voluntary and club-based Land Search and Rescue system that was set up in the 1930s, following what was partially learned from this event, lasted for 70 years.
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  • 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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  • Rising hut fees, the price of being honest

    I woke on Saturday morning to the Radio NZ news that back-country hut pass fees are to rise, or more to the point that they’ve already risen as of last Friday when the announcement was made. The base cost of annual hut passes rises from $90 to $120, and Great Walk Hut bookings (for those who use them) are also rising by $5 per night. The price of individual hut tickets (for those not using passes) stays the same at $5 each, although the Department of Conservation increased the number of tickets required to stay in many huts during mid-2008, when the “serviced hut” cost went from 2 tickets to 3 tickets per night.

    The story hasn’t made it far through the media, and most places where it’s visible show as a regurgitation of DoC’s press release pulled off the news-wire. One media organisation that investigated further was the New Zealand Herald, although the Herald’s story doesn’t offer much further information except to get a quote from a Mountain Safety Council representative who “welcomed the increase”. The article’s thin on detail about why the MSC welcomed the increase, just as it’s thin on why the MSC was consulted before organisations that more directly represent use of back-country huts (as opposed to outdoor safety) such as FMC, the NZ Alpine Club the NZ Deerstalkers, or any number of local outdoor recreation clubs for that matter.

    Hut fees were introduced in 1988 by the newly-founded Department of Conservation. They’ve taken time sink in, with many people early on finding it offensive for the government to effectively usurp facilities they’d helped to build, and then charge for their use. Chris MacLean’s Tararua history book quotes John Rundle during a 1991 taped conversation as follows:

    “I, with a lot of other people, have put a lot of voluntary time in cutting these tracks, building these huts — which DoC hasn’t done — going on searches, instructing schools, Scouts, Girl Guides and things like that — all voluntary. For them to come and ask me for a hut fee is an insult.”

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  • Mining on Schedule 4 Land submissions

    If you’re not in New Zealand, or if you’ve been living with your head buried in a sandbox for the last few months, you might not be aware that the NZ government’s been considering opening up sections of Schedule 4 land so they can be considered for mining applications. Schedule 4 is a section of the Crown Minerals Act which defines specific areas of New Zealand that can never be considered for mining due to very special conservation values. (In other words, it’s a sign saying “don’t even bother applying”.) It was designed as a compromise to clearly clarify where mining companies could and couldn’t apply to mine conservation land.

    Recent proposals by the current government to open up parts of schedule 4 land is is largely with mining interests in mind, and it probably has something to do with the spike in certain mineral values, such as Gold, in the last few years. It seems likely that such mining will actually go ahead sooner or later if certain targeted land is removed from Schedule 4. A variety of conservation, recreation and political groups (notably Forest and Bird, and Federated Mountain Clubs — the latter of which represents most tramping and outdoor clubs in New Zealand) have come out very strongly against the proposal, centred around a campaign titled 2precious2mine.

    4570586272_b582561ecc_m-1699074
    A Forest & Bird bus stop advertisement, corner
    of Bowen Street and The Terrace (Wellington).

    The Ministry of Economic Development is driving the push to open up parts of schedule 4, and (eventually) released a discussion paper after months of unclear speculation about exactly what was being considered. Public submissions on the document close at 5pm on Tuesday 4th May Wednesday 26th May (Update 13-5-2010: It’s been extended). Despite my feelings that a submission from myself would not make a real difference, I figured I’d feel much worse if I did nothing. At the very least, I suppose I can contribute to the count of people who cared enough about it add to the flood, and collectively that might help to demonstrate something. I visited the Submissions Page earlier this evening and made an online submission, which I’ve included the text of below.

    If you feel strongly about Schedule 4 (even if you disagree with me), please go and make your own submission, even if it’s just a short one. It’s not too difficult, and don’t feel compelled to stick to the structure that the Ministry of Economic Development is trying to encourage if it doesn’t fit what you want to say.
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  • Chocolate Volcanic Cake

    In a trip report last week, I wrote about a certain recipe for something called “Mt Doom — a Chocolate Volcanic Cake“. It’s based around staple ingredients such as 1 cup of drinking chocolate, a whole cup of chocolate chips, half a cup of strawberry jam, an unspecified amount of greek yoghurt (to counter the jam, I think), a little chilli powder to taste, one entire litre of “gooey raspberry ripple ice-cream”, and 3 token cups of couscous just to make the entire thing healthy. This recipe was published on page 18 of FMC Bulletin 178 (from November 2009), and its submitter claims it will serve “12 hungry trampers”. Reading the recipe over and over whilst lying in a tent, stuck behind a swollen river for 2 extra nights on a food budget, it’s unclear just how 12 people will be satisfied. It was in such circumstances that I decided I’d make the whole thing when I got back, and I’d appreciate it.

    Time goes on and appetites change. Two or three small town pub meals later, I’d lost my appetite for this gooey chocolate, strawberry and raspberry wonder-cake, or at the very least eating the entire thing. I still wanted to see how it’d come out, however, and eventually decided to divide all ingredients by three.

    It’s a simple recipe. The couscous gets mixed with twice as much water, the drinking chocolate, chilli powder and eventually the chocolate chips, creating chocolate-flavoured couscous. Once it’s cooled, the idea is drop the ice-cream into a (large) bowl, then tip the couscous mixture over the top. After this, the jam and yoghurt gets smothered over the top to make it look more volcano-like. (I refused to buy the raspberry swirl ice-cream because it was far too expensive, so bought some kind of triple chocolate ice cream instead.)

    After a first effort, this was the result.

    4292712278_002e77537f_m-2695772

    Several amateur insights occur following this cooking expedition:
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  • Te Araroa to avoid Oriwa Ridge in the Tararuas

    New Zealand’s Department of Conservation has decided not to establish a track along Oriwa Ridge in the Tararuas as part of Te Araroa — The Long Pathway. Instead, DOC is recommending that Te Araroa go via the exposed tops in the Tararuas, via places like Te Matawai, Dracophyllum, Nichols.

    The full published results are available on DOC’s website.

    The original proposal of the Te Araroa Trust was to go more or less via this route, but the Trust put together the alternative proposal to build a track along Oriwa Ridge, below the bush-line, after the DOC Wellington Hawkes Bay conservancy expressed concern that the earlier route could be too dangerous for the often less experienced trampers that Te Araroa might be expected to attract. This has been brewing for about a year now, and has unveiled much controversy over balancing the seclusion of dedicated wilderness areas and the promotion of recreation, and all that.

    Having gone through the submission process with 218 submissions, DOC has decided that its initial concerns are no longer relevant. It’s decided that for various reasons Oriwa Ridge probably isn’t that much safer anyway, that the reasons against the Oriwa Ridge proposal out-weigh the reasons in favour, and ultimately that there will be no track built through Oriwa Ridge. Reasoning that the Te Araroa Trust has since included rugged exposed alpine routes in other regions of the track, DOC has now also come out in favour of the original Te Araroa proposal that it initially had concerns about, to follow the existing and more exposed route through the Tararuas at higher altitude. As long as everyone who walks this section of the Te Araroa Trail takes standard precautions (ie. doesn’t take undue risks), this should be a win for everyone.

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  • Photo competitions are intriguing

    A few weeks ago we had our trampey club’s annual photo competition, which is quite a lot of fun and it’s an excuse to see photos people have taken throughout the year. It’s the second photo competition the club’s run which I’ve entered, and the third (and last) to be judged by Shaun Barnett, who’s decided to focus on other things. Shaun authors and co-authors a variety of books about NZ tramping, typically full of photographs, and just recently he’s taken over as editor of the Federated Mountain Clubs Bulletin, which I bet is a lot of work considering he already judges lots of photo competitions for other clubs.

    I’m not a photographer by any stretch (even as a hobbyist), but I do like to wave my camera around a lot on tramping trips, and this is typical for the demographic of our own photo competition where the majority of people (but not everyone) are primarily interested in tramping, but might pull out a camera from time to time. My own current toy is a Canon Powershot A720IS, which is almost exactly the same as my previous Canon Powershot A710IS, but the A720 has less water inside so tends to switch on. It’s not a typical tramping camera in the sense of being shock-proof or water resistant or extremely light-weight (it’s about 300 grams), but it takes the best photos on short notice that I’ve been able to manage for any camera in its range with which I’ve had a chance to experiment, so I just try to be careful with it and avoid damaging it.
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