Wilderness June 2016

Our new website This month Wilderness launches a new website. We have spent the last few months posting more than 1000 articles, dozens of gear reviews and 360 downloadable trips. We’ve added multimedia capability so you can now listen to our podcasts. It’s a vast repository of information on New Zealand tramping culture with enough trip ideas to last most people their lifetime. Visit the website and you will find all the stories and photos that are published in this magazine – even this editorial. We’ve gone as far back as January 2013 and plan to add more magazines from our archive over time. It is an invaluable resource, and as such we have put a price on it – we can’t simply give all this content away. The good…

NOT ONLY THE ‘NEXT GENERATION’ LACKING HUT ETIQUETTE IN HIS ARTICLE ‘The death of hut decorum’ (April 2016), Mike Evans laments the loss of hut etiquette. Isn’t hut etiquette considered superior to regular etiquette? His appalling experiences are way below regular, but sadly not unique. One aspect of his article I would take exception to is his closing question, in which he points his finger at the ‘next’ generation. Lake Howden Hut, where Evans encountered the bourbon-drinking hunters, is a great destination and being only a two-hour walk from the road, is popular with families. Over Easter three years ago, I was volunteer hut warden there. Three dads, three lads between 11 and 16, were joined by a mum, her friend and her teenage daughter. Each group took one of…

SEND YOUR PIX Get your photo published here to receive a set of four Light My Fire Sporks – one for you and three for your friends! Learn more about Spork at ampro.co.nz. Last Weekend submission criteria can be found at wildernessmag.co.nz…

An Australian human rights organisation has released an ethical fashion guide, in which several outdoor brands available in New Zealand were graded based on their manufacturing, supply, and workers’ rights policies. Several popular outdoor brands were on the list compiled by Baptist World Aid, including Macpac, which received a D+ on the grading scale. Kathmandu, The North Face and Smartwool each received B-, and Patagonia scored an A-. Macpac’s score was below the C+ average received by the other 87 companies and 308 brands in the survey. Nadia Scott, Macpac’s marketing manager, said the score doesn’t reflect the company’s ongoing social responsibility and that Macpac didn’t have enough time to provide the details requested by Baptist World Aid for the survey. She said Macpac is a member of the Outdoor…

The mountain biking season on one of the Great Walks could be extended by an extra three months. DOC is asking for public input on their proposal to increase the biking season on the 78km Heaphy Track from its current duration of five months to eight months. The season now runs from May 1 to September 30, but the proposed season would span April 1 to November 30, excluding the four days of Easter. DOC said the motivation behind the proposal is to promote use of the track and to give mountain bikers more opportunities to ride outside of the winter months. “The current mountain biking season is mostly in winter when cold weather, including snow, can make riding the track more difficult,” said DOC Golden Bay operations manager Andrew…

A solo tramper avoided a potentially long and life-threatening night in the bush when a new search and rescue satellite system picked up his PLB signal just four minutes after activation. The new system had only been operating in test-mode for three days when 53-year-old Wellington man Don Stevens fell 40m near Girdlestone, on the Wairarapa side of the Tararua Range, breaking his leg in two places and with bones poking through the skin. His PLB signal was picked up by the medium-earth orbit search and rescue system (MEOSAR) just four minutes after he activated it. According to Maritime New Zealand, the signal was picked up an hour earlier than would have been the case under the previous system. “The extra time created by receiving the signal faster was invaluable,…