Because crawling is more fun when it's windy

Today I went for a walk with Shaun around Belmont Regional Park, starting at Korokoro and up to Belmont Trig, then over to Cannons’ Head and back through the valley. I’d taken annual leave from work, and it was a really nice day for it. More photos are over here.

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Shaun’s temporarily here from New York, to where he migrated (from Wellington) about 7 years ago, but it’s really cool that he’s come over. He did most of the work for organising a bachelor party last weekend, and I was able to drag some people along part of the Skyline Walkway. Everyone kept up.

All this walking around, of course, was an ulterior motive to make it on topic for me to write that I’ll have a few other things on my mind over the next few weeks, and probably won’t get out walking or tramping much during that time unless things are hideously wrong. Not that this is a problem as far as I’m concerned.

The last couple of days has seen some unusual news whereby the chief guide of the Manawatu Tramping and Skiing Club has been pointing out that some of the new Topo50 maps are wrong, following a trip they had in the Ruahines. In particular, the maps included incorrectly marked or missing tracks, and such.

The story was first penned in The Manawatu Standard, and it’s since been picked up by Morning Report on National Radio (streaming available in your choice of [Windows Media Player], [MP3] or [Ogg Vorbis] depending on your preference).

I don’t know what the errors are, and perhaps they’re especially bad. On the other hand, I wonder if the fact that the Topo50 series maps have errors means that they’re any worse than the 260 series. It’s hard to tell for sure without more information. It’s in everyone’s interests to have maps that are correct, but it’s common for NZ topo maps to have errors here and there, and sometimes it’s just necessary to accept this. The only way to really be sure about a region, short of asking someone trustworthy or going out with them, is to be prepared for anything, look at the landscape, be in a frame of mind to change plans if necessary and then learn about an area from experience.
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A clouded in Kime Hut on the exposed tops
of the Southern Crossing, Tararua Range.

fallacy [fal-uh-see]. 1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.: That the world is flat was at one time a popular fallacy.. 2. a misleading or unsound argument. 3. deceptive, misleading, or false nature; erroneousness. 4. Logic. any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.

The Hut Fallacy. 1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion or belief prevalent in New Zealand outdoor circles that the objective of reaching back-country huts can reliably replace additional measures of safety. 2. a presumption that plans work, judgement is always perfect and/or that accidents only happen to other people.

I hope nobody minds me defining this term, at the very least for my own purposes. Despite this kind of thing happening often, I don’t know of a quick and easy term to describe it. I think The Hut Fallacy is something that pops up often in New Zealand’s back-country.
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Last winter there was a tragedy when two trampers died of hypothermia in blizzard conditions near Kime Hut in the Tararuas. One was particularly high profile, which is possibly why the story has gotten so much attention. I wrote some thoughts about it at the time, but reserved comment with the lack of information. The coroners’ inquest began a few days ago, and is now being reported on by the DomPost:

• 16th February 2010
• 17th February 2010
• 18th February 2010

It’s interesting reading, especially the latter articles, and seems to developing into some good examples of things they might have done better, but more importantly the presence of a culture that wasn’t a safe one to mix with the outdoors, yet also one which is very prevalent (in my opinion at least).

I’ve been on call at work in the past few days, which means I wasn’t supposed to wander too far from civilisation last weekend just in case the building burned down and somebody needed to trundle into town and validate the parking of the fire trucks, or something like that. Sunday was otherwise boring so I ended up going for a wander along the Skyline Walkway, which I figure should be okay because it’s relatively civilised and there are many exit points in case I needed to get back to a road or anything. Here are some photos (biased towards the Kaukau end of the walk), and here’s the map of the day:

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I put on my number three pair of boots, which tend to get used if I think I might need to walk on some road, and headed down the hill. Having left home at around 11.30am after hanging out the washing. This began with a walk down into Otari Wilton’s Bush, not far from where I currently live, then straight up the other side of the valley up to the ridge-line where the Skyline Walkway is situated.
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It’s neat getting home and finding one of these inside the curtain. We get them outside from time to time, but I’m not sure how this one found its way in. We probably left a window open, and once inside I guess this was the closest thing it could find to an old damp tree-stump.

It seems they can pinch very noticeably when they’re crawling over your skin, or maybe it was just surprised at my waking it up to get it outside.

This evening I was walking home over the Tinakori Hill — part of the town belt between my workplace and home. It’s interesting to see how the various tracks change. Some tracks are officially recognised and always well maintained, but others come and go. Last year, my most direct route was almost straight up a gully on what was a fairly wide four wheel drive track, even though I never saw a vehicle. It’s never been a very accessible road because it’s so steep, but for a long time the only other route was comparably indirect.

About 6 months ago, the local city council built a new well graded track (it even has a handrail) that switches up the end of the spur at one end of the valley. It switches so much that it takes longer, but it’s less steep. The original route, which I still try to use because of its directness, gradually becomes overgrown as time goes on. It will probably be inaccessible within a year or two if it’s not properly cleared, but meanwhile I’m continuing to use it. Earlier tonight, I must have disturbed about 50 small birds as I walked up, which never happened in the past, and it occurred that the high grass and scrub growth is becoming a haven for them as the bush takes over once again.
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The summit plateau during summer,
Dome Shelter partly obscured behind.

If you followed his blog, you’d think that Craig never leaves his bike behind these days. He occasionally gets out in tramping boots though, which is great because he’s probably one of the most skilled people at off-track navigating who I know. Last week Craig mentioned that after riding his bike around Ruapehu in one of those cycling events, he intended to take advantage of a truly awesome weekend weather forecast and wander up to the crater lake of Mt Ruapehu for a look. I’ve not been up that way before, and it piqued my interest enough to convince me to gatecrash. The basic plan was to go up the easy way, which is to drive to the top of The Bruce (that road up to Whakapapa Skifield), and head up from there. As a side note, we visited in the middle of summer. In winter you’d likely need alpine gear and it’s nowhere near as straightforward. It’s an un-marked route in which people can and do get lost and have accidents, and I guess in alpine environments even small problems can have serious consequences.

Date: 7th February, 2010
Location: Tongariro National Park, from the top of Bruce Road.
People: Craig and me.
Huts visited: Dome Shelter, aka Dome Equipment Shed (0 nights).
Route: Walk up from the end of Bruce Road to the top of the Waterfall Express chair-lift, then continue up Knoll Ridge to Dome Shelter at the Crater Lake. Down via Restful Ridge.
Related bits: Craig also wrote about this walk.
[Photos]
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Early morning Ruapehu from
near Ohakune.

Various weekend scheduling issues meant I couldn’t leave on Saturday, and the arrangement meant dragging myself out of bed to leave Wellington at 3am, so as to reach Ohakune at about 7am and wake Craig at DOC’s Mangawhero camp-site. I really wanted to stand outside his tent and blow a whistle really loud, but he was already packing up when I arrived, and nearby campers might not have appreciated it the same way I expect Craig would have with his understanding sense of humour. At least there was still a nice climb ahead during the day. A chap visiting the camp-side from Auckland, whom Craig had befriended, seemed to think we’d knock it off before lunch time. With a 1000 metre climb, I certainly wasn’t confident we’d be up and down within that time.
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The frequent tramping contingent in my IT team at work (roughly 3.5 people) found ourselves discussing this story, which popped up in the Southland Times this morning and now appears on Stuff. We reached a consensus that the SAR coordinator guy who’s been quoted was off his rocker in several of his comments if he was quoted accurately. If we’re to believe him as a voice of Search and Rescue, it’s dangerous to tramp at night and it’s rude to show up late at a hut.

In summary, a group was tramping to Siberia Hut (in Mount Aspiring National Park). They arrived about 11.30pm, one girl lagged behind and showed up 30 minutes later. During this gap, the warden at the hut notified Search and Rescue when the rest of the party indicated she was missing.

The Wanaka SAR Coordinator, however, seems to have come out with some very scathing comments in the media about how the group acted. He’s stated on the record that night walking is “not a good idea”, and that the absolute basics of tramping safety were ignored by the whole party. He also strongly criticised the group for showing up late, claiming that:

“most people using huts usually end up having pretty early nights, and don’t need to be woken up by groups of people banging and crashing around and settling in after midnight. It’s just ignoring tramping etiquette.”

I can’t comment on the specific case of this group’s etiquette due to the lack of information, but I take exception to both of these claims.
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This evening I was browsing the various RSS feeds to which I subscribe, and came upon this opinion piece expressed by Rosemary McLeod in the Dominion Post a couple of weeks back. I’m not exactly sure what she’s trying to say. (To put it in perspective, this is just an opinion piece in a newspaper and it’s about as irrelevant to anything as the blog post you’re reading right now.)

I’m a great respecter of nature and its many dirty tricks, which is why you won’t find me out in it whistling.

The complete tone of her opinion seems to be that we should be paranoid about what’s about to strike, and never take a step outside. Somewhere in there, she also expresses despair about not having flush toilets in the great outdoors, and the dangers of falling off cliffs into oblivion when following signs for easy graded tourist walks, or something like that. The intended message seems to be that we should all “respect nature” as she does.

We are surrounded by so few people, and so much bush, river, mountain and beach, that it escapes our notice that all of these are potentially lethal. Every summer there’s a catalogue of deaths as a result, since we expect to casually stroll about in it as if it’s our own living room.

I mean, Wow!
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