Windy Tops

Tag: huts

  • Why can some huts be locked from the inside?

    Yesterday, Federated Mountain Clubs published an informal facebook post. It noted an experience at Blue Range Hut, in the Tararuas, where the overnight inhabitants had locked the door from the inside.

    Most of the discussion under that post has been about whether it was poor form for the people who arrived first to lock out late arrivals. General consensus, which I agree with, is that it’s very poor form if it’s done with intention to keep others out.

    More significantly, though, it’s had me wondering about why any public back-country hut can have its door locked from the inside. What’s the legitimate purpose, if any, of allowing those inside to lock others out?
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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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  • Condensing the back-country into Wellington

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    Steve checks out Robin Hut, battered by
    wind on Wellington’s South Coast.

    Earlier today, Eamonn and Steve and I checked out some of the Miniature Hikes huts that have popped up around Wellington, and which should be around until the end of March, with a parallel display in the Courtenay Place Light Boxes. It’s a very cool idea.

    The project has recently received some media attention, both in mainstream publications and also in some tramping and outdoor channels. The exhibition’s main website gives a better idea of what it’s about, as does a short YouTube clip in which the artists explain what they’re on about.

    The idea is to “shrink the back-country into just Wellington”, giving people excuses to get out and find parts of Wellington’s back-yard away from the roads (but not too far away) which they might not otherwise have seen.

    Personally I hope that March won’t be the last we see of it.
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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 Downs and Ups and Downs of Kime Hut

    I’m unsure what to make of the latest happenings surrounding Kime Hut. This Saturday the TTC had been planning to host its own “opening ceremony” at the hut. If you haven’t heard, however, the TTC has been forced to abandon that ceremony because the hut is about to be locked. This comes nine months after the hut was all-but-completed, and nine months after people began using it unofficially, but the hut was never officially opened.

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    Kime Hut III, in October 2013.
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    The reason? Kime Hut 3 hasn’t yet obtained its Building Certificate from the Kapiti Coast District Council. DOC has finally decided that it can’t legally allow people to use the hut until the Building Certificate has been issued, to the extent of needing to lock the door to keep people out.

    Kime Hut is one of the more important huts in the Tararuas, both historically and also for its function. Since the hut’s inception it’s been used as an ad-hoc ski lodge, a stop-over point for many people walking the Southern Crossing and the Main Range, and also as a refrigerator. The exposure and cold of that region of the Tararuas means it’s not always the nicest place to spend a night, but on so many nights, and days, it’s far better to have a reliable hut with an inside that protects from chilling gale-force winds than it is to be stuck outside.

    [Update 8-Mar-2014: After quite a big outcry, DOC has now said it will not lock the door of Kime Hut.]

    More than a few people have also died in the vicinity through exposure to the elements, or come close to it. The most recent deaths occurred in the winter of 2009. Many more people have doubtless avoided a likely death by having the hut there as a refuge when plans went bad.
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  • It’s All in the Context

    Federated Mountain Clubs, in its October newsletter [PDF], notes the appearance of fake Department of Conservation signs around huts at the Otago/Southland end of the country. Some have political undertones and some just prompting cheap laughs. I’m not aware of any appearing elsewhere, but FMC is keen to know if you’ve spotted any.

    Josh Gale of Wilderness Magazine has since picked up the story, suggesting that at least one source of these signs is strongly suspected.

    DoC comes under recurring criticism for its proliferation of signs in the back-country (more on some of the history here). In this light, I think the most amusing aspect of this whole story for me, so far, has been a particular quote of Department of Conservation Senior Media Advisor, Herb Christophers, who was reported in Wilderness to have said:

    “Most people wouldn’t even read the thing because they’d think it’s just another DOC sign.”

    To be fair to Herb Christophers, Josh points out that he was freestyling at the time of the interview, and also said “I’m not too worried about it, it’s just some funny way people like to express themselves”. I just think it’s a gem of a snippet to come from one of the senior people involved with DoC communications. 🙂

  • Cooking gas to be removed from some Tararua Huts

    I realise there will be concerns about the Department of Conservation’s Wairarapa Conservancy deciding to remove cooking gas from several huts on the Wairarapa side of the Tararuas. DoC’s current Wairarapa Alerts page lists three of the affected huts as Mitre Flats, Totara Flats and Tutuwai. I’d guess Powell Hut and Jumbo Hut will also be targets, but can’t find this officially stated. The reasoning for the removal of cooking gas is that budgets are tight, and providing cooking gas for these serviced huts is quite an expensive operation.

    Personally I’m not concerned about this move. To me it seems that cooking gas (if required to cook one’s chosen meals) is something that should really be carried by a party already, even if they expect to find cooking facilities at a hut, simply for self-sufficiency. If you happen to fall over or otherwise get stuck part way to an intended hut, and don’t have the necessary equipment to cook your meal, you could very well be going hungry and find yourself in danger.

    The Dominion Post article quotes a manager of the Kuranui Outdoor Education Academy as saying that loss of cooking gas could be a safety issue because he might need hut gas to heat up a brew for students, and that carrying their own cooking equipment will make students’ loads heavier. If it’s an accurate quote, however, I have serious trouble accepting this reasoning. Children or not, if the party isn’t carrying self-sufficient cooking facilities on the way to a destination, it’s a safety issue already.
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  • Kime Hut Replacement is Actually Happening

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    Visiting Kime Hut at 9pm
    on a winter’s night.

    For several years now there have been rumours that Kime Hut would be replaced, and they’ve been subsequently quashed or pushed back for one reason or another. (Budget issues and such.) This summer, the rumours seem to be formulating into something that actually occurring. Kime Hut is in a very exposed part of the Tararuas, and serves as a stopping point for some as part of the Tararua Southern Crossing. The hut has a big internal space and its reputation is one of being a very cold place to stay, and although it can keep off the most harsh aspects of a storm, it’s also sometimes referred to as the refrigerator—on this occasion in 2009, Craig measured the indoor temperature to be approximately 1°C warmer than the outdoor temperature. It’s fairly common to hear people pleading for some form of heating in the hut, but that’s never happened.

    Last week (after I asked) I was very helpfully informed by one of the local staff at DoC’s Kapiti Conservancy that yes, Kime Hut is going to be replaced during the summer of 2012/2013.
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