NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

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NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 9:15 am

DOC is to test out hut bookings for the Rees Dart from 2013
the huts are overpopulated during summer, so book in advance with doc if you're intending to go then.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby whynotwalk » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 9:22 am

A rightly popular track! Broad valleys, beautiful forests, high mountains, glaciers - and the best day walk I've ever done: from Dart Hut to Cascade Saddle. Awesome - as you can see,

cheers

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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 9:41 am

because the other popular tracks in the area also require booking like the milford, routeburn and kepler, the rees dart is a track that ends up as an overflow for people who miss out being able to get onto those other tracks during the peak season, so once bookings are required, it will be the turn of other tracks to become an overflow, as the years go on it's likely more tracks will require bookings, the hollyford is another track that is overloaded at present. greenstone and caples are other tracks likely to end up getting overloaded , as well as other tracks in aspiring national park to the north west beyond the rees dart.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby Tony » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 10:37 am

I did the Rees-Dart 3 weeks ago, a top walk, we also did the side trip to the Dart glacier, in five days we only saw three other trampers, two Doc contract goat hunters (+two dogs), a Stoat Trapper, a Hut Warden and at the start of the Dart Track we came across a Doc's ranger checking animal survey traps.

We spent two nights of the four night with no one else in the huts, but I have read reports of overcrowding.

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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 10:41 am

the season has only really just started, by the end of december the huts are usually overloaded
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby Tony » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 11:11 am

Hi Wayno,

Doc's Queenstown advised us not to go as the track was not officially opened as bridge over the Snowy Creek had not yet been replaced, the track near Rees Saddle still had some snow on it, there was some avalanche danger still and there was a lot of trees down on the Dart end of the track. We went any way, we found the walking up to Dart Hut no real problems and once we talked to the hut warden, he actually encouraged us to continue but to traverse the avalanche area in the morning, and as it turned out it was no more difficult than most of my walks here in our mountains but with more spectacular scenery.

Planning to go back next summer and do the Gillespie Pass, Wilkin Valley Track.

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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 11:49 am

yeah, doc tend to be pretty cautious at hte start of the season, they only update the track status once a week on the website, seems the slightest avalanche danger and they advise people don't go, DOC are very cautious about the advise they give these days, a few years back a DOC ranger told a tourist about a shortcut on the routeburn track, the tourist died taking the shortcut, her parents tried to have the ranger prosecuted.
rangers are forbiden now from giving any advise not relating to official doc maintained tracks. and they wait till avalanche danger is pretty much gone before they officially advise people to use tracks,
at this time of year track conditions can change rapidly, you can still get the odd big dump of snow but then it melts rapidly,
only a couple of weeks ago doc would only let people complete the routeburn if they took a helicopter trip at the top of the track to get past harris bluff, and you still need to wait for the ranger to guide you through now according to the website
with the large no's of people that use the track they may be nervous about the possibility of accidents on those tracks they man.
there was a death on the cascade saddle last year, from someone going in inadvisable conditions, in soft snow, they slipped and fell over a bluff to their death.. the cascade saddle isnt to be taken lightly in bad weather, even the trip to the dart glacier from dart hut can turn treacherous in the rain from rapidly rising side streams, you can get cut off in heavy rain just about anywhere on the whole rees dart.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 11:54 am

comments someone else posted on the forum said it depends who you speak to at the doc info centres as to the information you get, some staff seem to keep better informed about what is going on on the tracks, others just give you the last official updte which could be days old, you get onto the track and find the situation has changed and you get a different story from a ranger...
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby Tony » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 1:43 pm

Hi Wayno,

We met some trampers that could only book Routeburn Flats hut as the main hut was booked out, Doc's would not let them go unless they pre-purchased a helicopter ticket $80, we also where told that the ride was 45-60 second long, we also heard that some refused the helicopter ride and walked the section.

We wanted to do the Cascade Saddle while we were up near the Dart Glacier but the forecast was for a front to come through mid afternoon so as we were doing the Rees Saddle the next day we decided to save our energy and leave Cascade Saddle for next time, as it was, the front did not arrive until the middle of the next day when we were on top of Rees Saddle, made for an interesting decent down into the Rees Valley.

I can understand DOC's being so careful, in the Dart hut there is an article on the Routeburn Track, while the jurno was interviewing a hut warden there was a knock on the door, when the warden answered, standing there was a lycra clad woman with expensive running shoes, it was raining hard and it was cold, she did not have a rain jacket or any rain protection at all, she actually did not have much gear or food either, she asked the warden if he thought it was safe to go to end of the track, he said no and to wait, she replied, I have to catch a bus and went anyway.

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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 3:22 pm

yeah doc are doing what they can to try and make people take the safe option, but they can't really make you take the helicopter flight.
cave creek also cast a very long shadow with doc, where a viewing platform overlooking a gorge collapsed, killing 14 people. the platform wasnt constructed properly, end result was doc then set strict standards for all their structures and went around closing down and removing dozens of bridges and huts because they didnt meet the minimum standard, being close to the standard didnt spare any structures that didnt meet the standard. some of the standards are actually for urban buildings, such as needing two exits where a building is made for more than five people, never mind that those buildings will often hold more people anyway and they are juste single room buildings when the rules were setup for apartments and houses... a lot of perfectly good structures are no longer available in places where removing them are potentially putting trampers safety at risk, ie without a bridge that has been removed there is now a potentially dangerous river crossing. so someone decision maker in DOC will decree that doc staff must insist that people take the helicopter on the routeburn as if there is no alternative, if you're already booked your huts on the routeburn and then find you have to pay another 80 and cant afford it what would you do>? i'd have a go at doing the track without the helicopter. the helicopter is already up there anyway for the guided walkers to ferry them so it's not like it's making a special trip they are already well paid by the guided walking company. so it puts four or five paying passengers in and collects $300 for a sixty second flight..... but it's probably the helicopter company that sets the price, nothing is cheap in that part of NZ unfortunately.
given you're already forking out $100 for two nights in huts and doc has up to a hundred and fifty paying people on the track a night they arent loosing money on the routeburn or any of the great walks... ironically if you get trapped and doc call a helicopter, you pay nothing for what can be a much longer flight to get you out, it happens pretty much yearly on the milford track. doc also collect big money from the guided walking company, those people are paying $400 for every day they spend on the track, meanwhile most of nz's walking tracks are being neglected as doc focus resources on the great walks, 75% of people on those walks are foreigners, nzers benefit less from doc even though our taxes pay for the service, we get no discount for using doc services despite paying a fair chunk of the staffs wages....
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 3:35 pm

theres ill prepared people everywhere, people dont realise you have 30 minutes to live if you fall into lake wakatipu in street clothes. you see people now trying to use softshells as storm shells, or just using umbrellas, it's not uncommon for trampers having to bale out ill equipped walkers with their own gear. i've heard of someone taking a suitcase on the routeburn, some young people think they are bulletproof, there are a lot of serious injuries on the cascade saddle. if there was the slightest int of rain i'd avoid it. there are a lot of stories of people totally ignoring advice not to proceed, and ending up needing rescued or a body bag.
people also think summer guarantees good weather, but thats not a given in our part of the world. there is the issue of doc stopping paper intention sheets and installing internet kiosks to register intentions but a lot of people set off out of doc office hours and still need paper intention sheets. people will continue to get needlessly hurt and die, such is life
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Thu 08 Dec, 2011 3:47 pm

this was the routeburn last xmas, lovely mid summer trip, wind gusting 100km/hr, 300mm of rain in 30 hours....
most people aborted the trip or were held up when one of the road ends was closed from a slip.
i was struggling to stay warm in full storm gear, with two thick fleece jackets.

http://www.youtube.com/waynowski#p/u/7/utS1J0ubi90
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby Tony » Fri 09 Dec, 2011 7:00 am

Hi Wayno,

Thanks for the information, it is very interesting.

Our mountains while not as dramatic as yours are still very dangerous at any time of the year, it is a an easy walk to the top of Mt Kosciuszko, especially if you start from Thredbo and catch the chair lift up the steep part, the next 7k to the top is on metal board walk and very good paths, at the chair lift there are lots of very large signs stating the dangers of walking in alpine areas and to take warm clothing and rain protection, I walked around Mt Kosciuszko four times last summer, three of the times it was cold and raining and every time there were people walking with no rain jackets, no warm clothes, no water and no food and there is no way they could not have seen the warning signs at the bottom of the chair lift. I have been up in our mountains in the middle of summer and have seen it rain, snow and hail, one time the was hail traveling horizontal to the ground.

One time about 27 years ago I was on top of Mt Kosciuszko in mid January and the windchill factor was -15ºC, we could barely stand up the wind was so strong, when we were coming back we saw some walkers were starting the walk up with only shorts and tee shirt.

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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Fri 09 Dec, 2011 4:44 pm

tony
you did the rees dart at the right time
DOC are now advertising the track as fully open for business,
the hordes will now be descending on the track en masse
http://doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation ... ewReesDart
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby sef » Sat 10 Dec, 2011 10:56 pm

Had to happen, but suspect that it'll have the effect of pushing more people over Gillespie pass.

Siberia has the same issue with Lake Crucible there and a lot of fly-ins.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Sun 11 Dec, 2011 3:25 am

the problem is , people are getting pushed onto more difficult tracks, ones they may not be experienced enough for, Gillespies pass is slippery and dangerous in the wet with the tussock and steep slope.
people might also end up on Rabbit pass, the waterfall face is one of the most dangerous in NZ.
these tracks are a world away from great walks, all the watercourses arent bridged, and tracks can be very rough and potentially risky in places. There's enough ill prepared idiots doing the great walks, and it's the least prepared who often miss out on getting on them and end up doing the more main stream tracks.
the first piece of information DOC should put on their publicity about these tracks is the level of danger for the track, before people read too far and decide they want to do the track and stop reading before they hit the information buried further back about the level of difficulty.
there have been four deaths in the NZ mountains in as many days over the past week. Two of them were very experienced in tramping in NZ. one was in an area not known for it's danger, it was a simple case of under estimating a stream in flood and over estimating their own ability.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby sef » Sun 11 Dec, 2011 11:46 pm

Oh, I've no solution either. Making things loopy friendly means raising the standards, which costs money, which you attempt to recollect, which means they avoid either the track or whoever's collecting hut tickets. And on the problem moves.

I reckon that it's important that people aren't made unnecessarily afraid of the outdoors, just mindful of it, and that a variety of experiences are available for everyone. They cop a lot, and some of it deservedly, even around the MANP plan, but I have a lot of patience for DOC's efforts in this regard.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Mon 12 Dec, 2011 3:51 am

we've had four dead in the southern alps in as many days last week in three seperate incidents, hopefully it was just a coincidence they died so close together
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby sef » Mon 12 Dec, 2011 11:16 pm

Yeah, horrible stuff really. I wonder whether classifying the two deaths at Franz as "tramping" deaths is all that helpful though (I note that The Press, etc, have done this) -- tourists trying to cross a glacial outflow at night in an area with first-class high-cost DoC infrastructure and more safety signage than about anywhere else on the island. It's almost a "what can you do?"

Some of the epic tragedies caught in hut books make for somber reading -- the daily entries of SAR in the Albert Burn Hut book as they were grid searching for that bloke who slid off the Waterfall Face, more or less exactly the same story in the the Matakitaki further north, agitated scrawl from groups who've had members swept away by the Rakaia and are waiting the night to resume what would probably be a fruitless search. But most of the entries in them are from people engaging with risk in a considered -- and maybe slightly fortunate -- manner, and enjoying themselves; and most of the epics in there are plainly ridiculous and told with good humour.

Dunno. My personal view is that you need playgrounds for people to learn in, and DoC do a great job of providing facilities for a diverse and incremental range of activities. Whether offsetting the cost of putting these facilities in through user-pays is undermining this is probably the point of contention. As above, no solution, sadly.

Maybe they could drive another Kepler somewhere. If they're prepared to put a tunnel through the divide, it's not the worst idea ever.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Tue 13 Dec, 2011 2:51 am

for whatever reason a lot of young people don't engage with tramping clubs where they can gain better experience. the average age of tramping club membership is increasing and the younger ones probably feel out of place.
i've seen clubs that just don't cater for beginners, their easy trips are really veterans trips whre the young feel most out of place. htey put the onus entirely on the individual to get themselves fit before trying to keep up with the high endurance abilities of the tramping club members....
people get enthused when they buy all the flash gear and watch bear grylls and other such tv shows, think they'll be able to handle it but can't spot situations like when and where not to cross a river....
thers also more of a casualisation of peoples exposure to tramping, they want to dabble in lots of different sports, they may be fit and think that will get them through difficult situations. to a certain extent it can,,, but theres always a pitfall waiting for the unwary...
tourist advertising doesnt help, encouraging people to just head for the outdoors, the instant gratification society is at odds with tramping in dangerous places.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby Lindsay » Sun 18 Dec, 2011 4:37 pm

Is the Rees-Dart booking requirement applicable to campers as well wayno, or just hut users?
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Sun 18 Dec, 2011 4:56 pm

campsites too, bookings only required from 3 January to 28 February each year, beginning in January 2013

http://www.doc.govt.nz/getting-involved ... ng-system/

Lake angeles Hut in Nelson lakes has also been added to the hut's that require booking in summer....
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby icemancometh » Tue 10 Jan, 2012 12:02 pm

You can still just do it as a day walk or camp up at the Saddle?

In a spur of the moment decision I packed up and left Wanaka from one of the backpackers in the morning and hitched into Raspberry Flat in the afternoon and made for the track. I remember having a loaf of bread or two, a jar of peanut butter, some boiled eggs and raro.
I got into Aspiring Hut that afternoon and was put off going up Cascade Saddle straight away after reading all these scary reports. This was when I was starting out too and I had a big pack with all my travelling gear too as I was backpacking at the time and my mountaineering boots strapped to the outside. Walked up and over and out in about 14hrs in some old runners. Thought the Saddle was pretty cruisy in dry conditions. (I've since come down it too a few times and think it's fine as long as you pay attention to your footing). Winter conditions would be a totally different kettle of fush though

I just kept getting to the next hut and going, "Oh, it's so full and I've still got so much daylight" and just kept walking. With all these people going ultralight these days it'd be pretty doable. That was the longest 'day' I'd had at the time and opened my eyes up to what was doable as a walk.

That being said, it is a nice part of the world and definitely bring some mozzie nets for the sandflies...they are pretty aggressive once you stand still...got quite a few bites from stopping to empty shoes of water and getting/treating water/eating.
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby wayno » Tue 10 Jan, 2012 12:34 pm

i think it would take a lot of people longer than 14 hours if they arent used to big days with a big pass.
took me 16 hours over three days, i'm reasonable fitness. i only stopped twice, both about fiteen minute breaks on the first day. although i could have saved time if i didnt try to follow the cairned track over the morraine once i hit the top of the dart river and just walked in the river bed most of the way to the dart hut,
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Re: NZ Rees Dart Track will require bookings from 2013

Postby Walk_fat boy_walk » Fri 20 Sep, 2013 2:06 pm

Just to close this off (for those not already aware of the consultation outcomes):

http://www.doc.govt.nz/getting-involved/consultations/closed/rees-dart-track-booking-system/

This was still being talked about last time I was over there and given that I'm contemplating heading back over (possibly to do this track) I did a bit of a web search. The crux of it is:

At this stage, the booking system will be put in place for the 2014/15 summer season for roughly the period between Christmas and the end of February.

Doesn't seem overly restrictive, and won't affect me :)
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