Windy Tops

Tag: musing

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
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
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
Media Impressions of a Tararua Rescue

Sunday (a week ago, 11th July) saw what was probably a routine rescue mission in the southern Tararuas. A man (31) and a woman (27) from Wellington were somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Hut and unexpectedly walking through deep snow. The Sun began to set, and their GPS batteries died. It seems they were lucky to be in a place where their phone worked, because they texted their last known position to friends to say they were scared for their safety, and were heading for Alpha Hut. The weather was very clear and calm, not expected to deteriorate any time soon. A helicopter crew spotted their torch light at about 6.30pm on Sunday night, using night vision goggles, and collected them.

In some ways this rescue wasn’t very interesting. It barely made the news at all. It was reported very briefly in the DomPost, not even giving an approximate location, but reporting the GPS failure. A press release from the Life Flight Trust (duplicated here) adds a few more details, but wasn’t picked up and analysed by any popular media outlets that I can find. Also being a press release from the helicopter operator, its main focus is that they rescued people with their helicopter rather than explaining why those people needed rescuing.
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15 July, 2010
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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5 July, 2010
Tongariro Crossing Dangers
Just quickly, this 5 minute Close Up report clearly demonstrates what’s wrong with the Tongariro Crossing right now, and why probably nothing’s going to change until there’s an unexpected storm that wipes 50 tourists off the mountain. Hopefully that change, assuming it occurs, revolves around more effective education of tourists by whatever means are appropriate, and does not involve restricting the freedom of people to explore conservation land on their own terms. [Update 8th May 2012: I’ve put some thoughts on the latest Tongariro Crossing accident over here.]

I think this problem is caused by a combination of things, notably:
- The Tongariro Alpine Crossing (formerly the Tongariro Crossing) is often advertised as the best daywalk in New Zealand, and something that must be done.
- For many tourists to New Zealand, it’ll be their first experience, their only experience or one of very few outdoor experiences, meaning they’re unlikely to have appropriate clothing and gear.
- Tourists often come to New Zealand from places with very different conditions to New Zealand’s alpine conditions, possibly through tourist trails of other countries where it’s more difficult for tourists to get to dangerous places unsupervised, and aren’t prepared for what to expect, possible sudden changes in weather or other dangers.
- Some people set aside a specific day to walk the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, and arrange and book other parts of their trip around this date. If the weather isn’t appropriate on the day they’ve chosen, the go anyway.
To demonstrate the changeability of the weather, these two photos were taken less than an hour apart during November 2007.

I realise I’m 4 months late with posting this link. I’m afraid I don’t watch much television.
4 July, 2010
A Trampers Journey by Mark Pickering (my notes)

Several years ago I picked up this book by Mark Pickering titled A Tramper’s Journey, subtitled Stories from the back country of New Zealand, and noticed the entire opening section was all about the author’s 1970s experience in Tongue & Meats, also known as the Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering Club. (Its slang name was adopted from a local butchery in the early days that had the same initials.) With this being a club I’d recently joined, I bought it and began rushing through the early pages, keen to pick out any names I might recognise. Before long the author began to venture into other parts of his experience which I hadn’t been able to relate to very well, and at that time my interest was distracted by other things. Recently I re-discovered it on my bookshelf, read through the entire thing, and noticed many more aspects of this book that now resonate.

The book was published in 2004 and as far as I know hasn’t been reprinted, so it’s now 6 years old. I do still see it on occasion being sold in bookshops as a new book, so I think it’s still available, or should at the very least be easily found in most New Zealand libraries. [Edit 25-Mar-2012: An electronic PDF copy of the entire book is now available for download from the author’s website.] It totals just under 200 pages of relatively easy reading that’s divided into so many distinct sections that it’s easy to pick up and put down for short stints. My paperback copy is on good quality paper. I thought it was heavier than it looked as if it should have been when I took it tramping a couple of weeks ago.

This is a tribute book to tramping more than anything else. Unlike similar books on the shelves, this one isn’t about climbing or mountaineering, and it’s not about hunting. Mark Pickering himself commented that while there are a plethora of journals and newsletters and several guide-books that include elements of story telling, there are very few books specifically devoted to tramping stories. What he’s produced is a semi-autobiographical combination of stories that mostly, but not exclusively relate to his experiences of tramping all over New Zealand. Over 30 years between 1974 and 2004, he tallied visits to about 900 distinct huts, and learned a lot of history and stories to go with his experience.

The book is structured into a combination of stories, trivia, and both anecdotes and larger explanations of tramping history. The author is a self-confessed history buff. All these elements are structured between eight chapters that group related topics, and with each chapter clearly divided into several sections. Sometimes the association of the section with the chapter is generous. Mark Pickering’s story about his discovery of a gold mine of old maps seems to be affiliated with his chapter about tramping in the Canterbury back-country on the thin premise that the second hand bookshop with the maps happened to be in Christchurch. It doesn’t really matter though, because that’s exactly what this book is — a journey of loosely connected anecdotes and stories laid out in a way for the reader to flow between, to gather an appreciation of why people go tramping, what’s important, and how things work in the back-country.
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23 June, 2010
Learning and Instruction

Today I attended an outdoor first aid refresher course, which is the regular course required every two years to retain an existing outdoor first aid certificate. This instance of the course was run by the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council, an organisation dedicated to encouraging safe practices outdoors. Members of the MSC help to design and to teach courses on a variety of topics, of which First Aid is only one.

Anyone can sign up to an MSC course, as long as the course pre-requisites are met. For those generally interested in outdoor safety, however, the MSC encourages people to join as instructors. Presently throughout New Zealand the MSC has and handful of paid staff, but its main strength is in over 1000 volunteer instructors. Researching best practices, designing and running the courses and comprehensive training material helps to spread the knowledge further among the outdoor community, but encouraging people to train to be instructors also helps to reinforce and embed what skills are learned. It’s a really cool philosophy and culture in which people continue to use the skills by learning to teach the skills.
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20 June, 2010