Windy Tops

Tag: tramping

  • And now I need a new one

    That could have gone better. My compass has just been claimed by the Ruahine Range during an “unscheduled” pack-floating incident in the Oroua River near Iron Gates Hut. I think it must have floated out of my pocket while I was concentrating on other things which, to be perfectly honest, seemed more important at the time. In hindsight I still think they were, and my robust little navigational instrument was a necessary price to pay. I guess it says something for making sure that everything’s tied down. It’s probably most of the way out to sea by now.

    It was a Silva Field 7, which is a very basic baseplate compass and it does the job perfectly. They retail for about $30 so it’s no great financial loss. It’s still a bit of a downer, though, since I make an effort not to leave junk lying around in the wilderness.

    Other than that, it was a worth-while experience. I’ll write something and post photographs of the trip in coming days. Meanwhile you could read Robb’s account of his solo trip in the same area a few days beforehand.

    Update, 27-10-2008: It seems I wrote the account of the whole trip faster than I thought.

  • Thoughts about river safety issues

    427987563_d39a33e0c0_m-1877303
    The Waiohine River in flood,
    seen from Totara Flats.
    It’s probably not a good idea to
    attempt a crossing.

    In the past few days there’s been another river crossing tragedy in New Zealand, this time at Eggie. Once again, as often seems to be the case, it sounds as if it was someone quite experienced who may have simply made a bad judgement call about whether or not to try and cross, possibly distracted by the bad weather, as well as the thought of being so close to home compared with possibly having to spend another night out.

    Drowning accidents are one of the most common ways for people to be killed in New Zealand’s back-country, especially after cases of hypothermia have fallen with the advent of better gear for keeping warm. This is why, I guess, it seems a good idea for anyone who goes tramping a lot to get properly educated in river safety, and to get as much experience as possible. I’ve been working on trying to learn about river safety for a while now, partly through experience and I also signed up to a river safety course about 18 months ago. I’m still nowhere near being an expert, but I’ve noticed a few things I find interesting.

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  • Trip: Cone Peak, towards Neill and back

    We began the weekend with an ambitious plan to start from Cone Saddle, and walk to Alpha Hut during Saturday via Neill, Winchcombe and Hector. It didn’t quite work out, but we still had a good time.

    2855744654_e2bf28a702_m-2407949
    A Tararua Rainbow, looking
    south from near Neill Peak (1158).

    Dates: 12th – 14th September, 2008
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Walls Whare Road-end.
    People: Alistair, Sarah, Illona, Amanda, Bernie and me.
    Huts visited: Cone Hut (1 night).
    Intended Route: Walk to Cone Saddle and camp on Friday night. From Saturday morning head up to Cone, over to Neill via Neill Saddle, across to Winchcombe Peak, continue to Hector, then follow the Southern Crossing track to Alpha Hut for Saturday night. Out via Marchant Ridge on Sunday.
    Actual Route: We got to about point 1055 below Winchcombe Peak, then decided to turn around and head back to Cone Hut for the night and head back to Walls Whare on Sunday.
    [Photos and movies]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    We arrived at Walls Whare in coordination with another club group that was indirectly aiming for Totara Flats, with both groups planning to walk the first leg of their trip on Friday night. The others intended to spend the night at Cone Hut, whereas we thought we might just camp up the hill at Cone Saddle, which was marginally closer to where we planned to go.
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  • Trip: Howletts Hut via Longview and Taumatataua

    Last weekend we visited the Kashmir road-end on the eastern side of the Ruahine Range, which I hadn’t visited since I went up to Longview Hut on a WTMC club trip near the end of 2006. Our group planned to go some distance further than Longview this time, and on to Howletts Hut which is quite a lot further into the range.

    2816347787_f0882c68f3_m-2771786
    Frosted alpine grasses just
    below Otumore.

    Dates: 29th – 31st August, 2008
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Kashmir Road-end.
    People: John, Alistair, Sarah, Paul, Pete and me.
    Huts visited: Longview Hut (1 night), Howletts Hut (1 night).
    Intended Route: Camping at Kashmir on Friday night, up to Longview then down to a short river walk up to Daphne Hut (brrrr, cold), then up to Howletts for Saturday night. Return the same way.
    Actual Route: We actually walked to Longview for Friday night, then went direct to Howletts over the tops via Taumatataua and along Daphne Ridge for Saturday night. Returned the same way over the tops.
    [Photos and movies]
    [More photos (from Pete)]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    The Kashmir road-end is more or less a dead-end and although DOC has been nice enough to provide a dunny at the end of the road, it isn’t surrounded by much in the way of good camping sites. There might be some possible camping just inside the start of the track, and it also looked possible to set up a tent fly or two under the pine trees a few hundred metres back along the road. Having driven up from Wellington on a Friday night, however, our plan had been to set up a camp at one of the private farms down the road, after gaining permission to do so. (Being in a club’s great when you have those kinds of contacts.) Turning up at 11pm, though, we were having second thoughts about camping at the road-end at all.
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  • That’s great service

    A couple of weeks ago we visited Penn Creek Hut, and I noted in my trip report that there were a couple of leaks in the hut. Well, like a good little tramper I flicked an email to the Department of Conservation when we arrived back in Wellington to let them know, hoping that perhaps someone would add it to their list of things to expect next time a maintenance team was in the area. I’ve had mixed reception when reporting this kind of thing in the past (such as this time), probably depending on a lot of things such as how busy the office is, how important the issue sounds, and how much I might appear to be a pedantic troublemaker who’s exaggerating a problem.

    Anyway, within a short time my email had made it to the Visitor Asset Manager at the Kapiti Area Office, who responded immediately to let me know that they were onto it, and to try and confirm some more details of what the exact problem was, and offering some hypotheses about possibly lifted lap joints around the skylight. I was impressed, but I was really impressed when I received another email a few days later saying they’d visited Penn Creek Hut for a look, letting me know what the problem was and indicating some plans to re-roof the hut next spring.

    DOC often gets criticised for all sorts of reasons, especially being such a big department with so many responsibilities to so many people, many of whom have conflicting interests. It’s great to get responses like this though, I think, which just demonstrate that underneath it all there are still a lot of really great people whose main job and interest is to keep things running well.

  • Trip: Penn Creek Hut on a rainy day

    Last weekend we went to Penn Creek Hut in the western Tararuas.

    Dates: 1st – 3rd August, 2008
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Otaki Forks region.
    People: Craig, Fraser, Peter and me.
    Huts visited: Field Hut (1 night), Penn Creek Hut (1 night), Parawai Lodge (0 nights).
    Intended Route: Otaki Forks to Field for Friday night, then up to Vosseler and navigate down spur to Penn Creek Hut for Saturday night. Out to Otaki Forks via Table Top on Sunday.
    Actual Route: Straight to Penn Creek Hut via Table Top on Saturday (due to heavy rain), then back up to Table Top on Sunday via spur starting at S26 025307, due to a flooded side-creek blocking the usual track.
    Related bits: Craig also wrote about this weekend.
    [Photos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    Saturday night, prior to which we didn’t do much at all: There’s a little mould on the Penn Creek Hut mattress that I’m sitting on as I write these notes. We’ve been here for 5 hours now, since a bit after mid-day. Water drips from the skylight into a bucket. There’s also water dripping into the fireplace, thwarting efforts to get a fire going. We even tried to burn some of Peter’s marshmallows, but that didn’t work either. Did I mention that the trees are dripping? And so is the sky. The bucket was nearly full when we arrived and we’ll need to empty it before we leave.

    There were supposed to be six people in our group, but two bailed on Thursday, citing correlations between the reputation of the Tararua Range and the weekend’s forecast. This meant that before we arrived, we only had Craig’s small billy in which to cook. Fortunately there’s some quite good cooking and cleaning gear at the hut. Craig organised the trip. He looked impressive earlier today, sporting his Oringi Jacket — “the jacket that keeps you and your shorts dry” — just like that guy inside the back cover of every FMC bulletin. Peter’s on his first ever club trip, having arrived a few weeks ago from Scotland. Fraser’s also on his first club trip although he’s been tramping in New Zealand before, particularly in the Orongorongo Valley, and has some interesting stories. Last night I asked Fraser about his pack, which looks about as old as he is and far more worn down. He told me he found it in a dumpster and had to argue with his friend about who’d get to keep it.

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  • Consultation of building codes for New Zealand Backcountry Huts

    As of a few weeks ago, it’s been possible to make a submission about proposed changes to the building code as it applies to New Zealand Backcountry Huts. If you have an interest in this kind of thing, I’d strongly suggest making a submission, even if you mostly agree with the proposal. The deadline for receiving submissions is Monday 23rd June 2008, and the consultation document is available online thanks to New Zealand’s Department of Building and Housing.

    A few weeks ago when I wrote my trip report about visiting Cattle Ridge, I made a comment about the apparent absurdity of DOC’s decision to remove a bunk from the 6 bunk hut. This is apparently due to some ambiguity in the various New Zealand building codes which imply that these days, certain kinds of structures that are intended for a certain number of people require a certain number of fire exits, as well as various other things that seem more suited to populated areas. The consequence? Well somewhere along the line, someone decided that back-country huts with 6 or more bunks would require at least 2 fire exits. Because the design of many back-country huts makes it impractical to add an additional fire exit (there’s simply not enough wall space), DOC adopted the policy, in some cases, of removing one of the beds to turn 6 bunk huts into 5 bunk huts. [Edit, 19/3/2012: It turns out the sixth bunk in Cattle Ridge Hut may have been missing for other reasons, but there remain other examples of Doc staff removing bunks from huts to meet safety standards.]

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  • Trip: Hackett, Rocks, Dun Mountain

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    Sunrise over Hackett Hut.

    Mount Richmond Forest Park is just south-east of Nelson, to the extent that it’s feasible to walk out almost directly into Nelson if you arrange your trip that way. This is where we headed for the long Queens’ Birthday weekend.

    Dates: 30th May – 2nd June, 2008 (Queens’ Birthday Weekend)
    Location: Mount Richmond Forest Park, Hackett Road End to Brook Street Exit.
    People: Éamonn, Paul, Sharon, Fiona, Steven and me.
    Huts visited: Hackett Hut (1 night), Browning Hut (0 nights), Roebuck Hut (1 night), Middy Hut (0 nights), Rocks Hut (1 night), Dun Hut (0 nights), Third House Shelter (0 nights).
    Route: Hackett Road End to Hackett Hut for Friday night (actually for Saturday morning to be more accurate), then on to Roebuck Hut for Saturday night via Browning Hut and Totara Saddle. Carry on along the Pelorus River to Rocks Hut for Sunday night, with a short side-trip down to Middy Hut on the way. Then out to Brook Street, including a side-trip up Dun Mountain from Dun Saddle.
    [Photos and Videos]

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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