Windy Tops

Tag: update

  • A quick hello

    Hello.

    A couple of years ago I took down this blog, in part because life had intervened and become distracting and I’d stopped updating it, but mostly because with how I’d originally set it up nearly 20 years ago, it’d become increasingly cumbersome and expensive to maintain and keep running.

    I’ve since gotten back into a little tramping again, though. As well as catching up on a back-log of FMC Bulletins, I’ve also gotten my act together and found a more efficient way to make the blog work again, I hope. I don’t think blogs are quite as significant in the world today as they were pre-2010, especially given how much info is exchanged through social media, but my main reason for this has always been as motivation to scribble down notes about where I’ve been. I think it’s still good for that. Therefore I’ve restored all the backups and will probably spend the next few weeks tinkering and getting various bits on the sides to work properly again. Once I get around to it, I’m also hoping to fill in some space with a handful of reports of trips I’ve done during the time things were down.

    If you happen to stumble on this, then enjoy.

  • Good insight on river safety

    Earlier today Toni Burgess (aka AntNZ) posted an excellent article about river safety in New Zealand. I’ve written about river safety on this blog in the past, yet Toni’s article, which also draws on expertise from Heather Grady of Outdoor Training NZ, really manages to put some of the less intuitive aspects in perspective.

    For example, on braided rivers:

    …a recent Te Araroa group took the decision to cross the Rangitata River, it took them 2 hours and this river is known to be in full flood with no channels showing within an hour. So essentially you could be half way across the river, finding yourself on a shrinking island of shifting river bed.

    If you spend any time around rivers, or suspect you might in the future, it’s a highly worthwhile read.

  • Otaki Gorge Road Closed, Also for Foot Access

    Just quickly, for now at least, it looks as if Otaki Gorge Road has been closed. Not just for vehicles due to the usual slip, but also to foot access. At this time, it also appears to be indefinite.

    Alternatively, here’s the announcement from the Kapiti Coast District Council. The latest status of the road can be checked here.

    The reason? New cracks found above when clearing the road from an earlier slip. It won’t be until next year before more detailed survey work can be carried out to determine the scale of the problem.

    This sounds potentially serious and hopefully it doesn’t result in long term blocking of access to Otaki Forks from outside the Tararuas. That entrance is, by a substantial margin, the most major entrance and exit point on the western side of the range.

    [Edit 23-Dec-2015, 5.50pm: Further information from Radio New Zealand Checkpoint.]

  • This coming weekend

    I’ve been struggling to get out lately due to other commitments, and it’s likely to continue for a while longer. This weekend, though, I’m anticipating a short jaunt in the Tararuas with Tongue and Meats, in the vicinity of Mitre and Girdlestone if the weather plays nicely. Last time I visited Mid-King Biv was ages ago. The weather’s uncertain and I’m not sure if that will actually happen, but am looking forward to it regardless. Otherwise it might involve some navigation around Blue Range. I’ll write about it more properly afterwards.

    As some consolation for less tramping I’ve been exploring around Ngaio and Crofton Downs, where I’ve been living since the beginning of this year. Whilst I’m working from a home office lately it’s become a very accessible starting point for quickly escaping suburbia during my lunch break. There are frequent and steep hills available and plenty of native bush and reserves nearby, whether it’s Trelissick Park or Te Ahumairangi Hill (aka the Tinakori Hill), or Otari-Wiltons Bush or the Skyline Walkway, which is up behind where I now live, and noisy gangs of Kaka making themselves known every morning and evening. There have been good opportunities to explore and discover much of what’s around here beyond what I was familiar with last time I lived nearby.

    With the Skyline Walkway I’ve come across several [cough] unofficial but more direct routes up to the ridge, which must nevertheless be frequented by at least a few people given how well defined they are. It’s tempting to go up and trim back some of the gorse, of someone else doesn’t beat me to it. The accessibility’s paying off, too. Several weeks back on July 9th, I was able to hop up immediately when Wellington had one of its colder days for which the western hills received a rare dusting of snow, despite being very near the sea and only 300 metres above sea level.

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    Anyway, tramping this weekend!

  • 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.

  • Searching for accounts of attempts on the Schormann-Kaitoke (SK) traverse of the Tararuas

    Very briefly, I’d like to help propagate a request from my local club (Tongue & Meats), who are looking for the stories of anyone who’s attempted an SK in the last few years.

    The SK is named for Schormanns-Kaitoke, which represents a traverse between the northern and southern ends of the Tararuas. The Shormanns entrance is no longer accessible, so the normal northern point is now considered to be Putara Road.

    In 1997, the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club first published a collection of accounts of SK attempts. The latest of these collections is getting out of date, though, and it’s time for a new, sixth edition.

    Several major variants for the SK exist, but the traditional route is via the Main Range. Going back to the early 1960s there’s been an ongoing challenge within tramping clubs and related communities to complete SK traverses within a weekend. The true believers set themselves a task of completing a full day of work on Friday, as per usual, before they’re allowed to leave to attempt it. 🙂
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  • You can’t beat Wellington on a good day

    All parts of New Zealand have great things going for them, but the target of my unending bias is definitely the Wellington region. This is the case even though I’ve been absent for the past 2.5 years, living in Melbourne for secondary employment reasons. I’m aware that the region gets its share of weather events which are sometimes unpleasant to live with, yet it’s events like last week’s relatively newsworthy storm which also cause me to feel most home-sick. It’s the type of thing I would have written about if there at the time.

    Sunny and consistent weather is okay for a few minutes, but I appreciate being able to walk around a hill-top in the town belt during a strong wind, or sit on the rocks during a southerly gale under the sheltered northern end of the Wellington Airport runway, watching the flights awkwardly drop to the runway from directly underneath. When living locally, it’s the type of thing I often enjoyed writing about between everything else which ends up here, but it’s been lacking during the time I’ve been away.
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  • An update on that “inappropriate PLB activation” incident

    In February I wrote a lengthy post based on a major media incident where a man was reported to have activated a Personal Locater Beacon (PLB) because he was “running late”. This wasn’t just out-of-control media, however. It was sparked by a hasty press release pushed out by the Rescue Coordination Centre of New Zealand (RCCNZ)—the part of Maritime New Zealand which is responsible for monitoring and responding to PLB activations. In my opinion, the press release was full of inflammatory and unverified innuendo that accused the man of “apparently” mis-using the beacon, and it then threatened to charge him for mis-use. At the time, popular media lapped it up.

    It’s great to see, therefore, that the RCCNZ has now completed an investigation and cleared the man of any wrongdoing with respect to activating the PLB. (Here’s the Fairfax coverage via the Nelson Mail or the Press, which have different comment threads.)

    To me this whole incident seemed uncharacteristic and inconsistent on the part of the RCCNZ, certainly when compared with other rescue organisations. I haven’t seen reliable details of the specific incident and therefore can’t comment on this man’s case, except to note that being cleared of allegedly activating a PLB without an emergency doesn’t necessarily mean that things couldn’t have been done better to avoid problems in the first place. What I do know is that PLBs are activated regularly in New Zealand, and some activations are definitely less appropriate than others. I still don’t understand what was so incredibly special about this incident which caused it to be singled out. I can’t see any clear reasons why the man’s actions were taunted so strongly and inconsistently, especially from official sources, when there are so many other incidents to choose from.
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  • Re-visiting New Zealand

    We’re getting ready to go back to New Zealand again, in another of our recurring visits. For anyone who reads these things and has not been aware, I’ve been living abroad for the last couple of years. My plan, having caught up with some friends and family around Wellington, is to visit the Ruahines over Easter as part of a small WTMC group. All of the cool kids in the trampey club like to go south on long weekends for some reason, so we’ll be a more dynamic, small group in what is the second best mountain range for tramping in the world. These are my favourite kinds of groups to go out tramping with, so it should be enjoyable.

    Being the Ruahines, as with many other parts of NZ, I anticipate steep climbs between coasting around on the mildly undulating tops, possibly in cloud and strong wind. Trying to prepare for this type of thing, when based in Melbourne, has been a novel task in itself. When living and working in Wellington, I really didn’t have to think about hill-walking fitness issues too hard, as I could easily organise my life to factor in some good routine walking activities which tended to keep me generally walking fit. I’d have a 200 metre vertical climb upwards every evening when I walked home from work, and an 80’ish metre vertical climb upwards when I walked to work in the morning. A large chunk of the route was in Wellington’s town belt, generally away from immediate clusters of population. It was a nice escape at both ends of the work day, and I think having this day after day worked.

    That type of interwoven landscape doesn’t really exist in Melbourne. Here I have a 40 minute walk into and out of the CBD every morning, but it’s all flat, through landscaped grassy parks with footpaths, sports fields and planted trees alongside busy roads and cycle routes. It’s nice in other ways, but it rarely feels physically taxing as far as getting walking-fit. Therefore, as with the previous times I’ve returned NZ to go tramping, I’ve attempted to simulate a hill-side by climbing up and down the stairs of the building in which I work.

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    An interwoven landscape, November 18th last year.
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  • Check Out FMC Bulletin Number 190

    A Track Closed sign in the Eastern Tararau Range.
    A Track Closed sign in the Eastern
    Tararua Range. Photo: Craig McGregor.

    If you have access to the November 2012 copy of the Federated Mountain Clubs Bulletin Number 190, please take a look at pages 40-41 on which I have a small opinion piece.

    In it, I discuss a creeping issue which I think exists with the Department of Conservation’s tendency to declare places as ‘closed’, after which it’s legally ambiguous and often misleading as to whether they’re actually closed or not. I don’t want to under-cut the FMC Bulletin’s distribution by posting it here immediately, but once it’s had a reasonable chance to get around, I’ll re-post it here with much more elaboration on the issue and the laws involved.

    I’m ultimately hoping to provoke a discussion about this. As much as I enjoy people commenting on this blog, I think such a discussion would be more effective and useful via entities such as Federated Mountain Clubs, which I know reaches many more people than my blog does. Therefore, if you have something especially engaging to say and are equipped to respond in that forum, I’d like to suggest considering a response via the FMC Bulletin or a similar forum. (eg. Write the editor a letter if you’re so inclined — Shaun likes letters. 🙂 ) Otherwise please tell your friends, or comment here if you’re not so organised or aren’t affiliated enough.
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