it should be compulsory for the shuttle companies to charge for and dish out plastic bags big enough to wear. possibly with holes already cut for the head arms.... at least it will guarantee all walkers can have some protection against the elements. could be biodegradeable plastic...
the indians may have been a bit better off at least the other week....
I have mixed feelings. On one hand I think it could help if it were really really really easy and cheap for people to hire all the *real* gear they could possibly need, right from the end of the road, and even if they didn't bring cash or any other method of payment, and irrespective of whether they're with a commercial operator. This doesn't have to be DoC, if someone can figure out a business model, but it might work better if it were subsidised somehow (and this is just me making stuff up as I type). A problem is still that even if you've figured out how to make such a system work without people damaging, losing or running away without returning expensive stuff, it still doesn't instill common sense and understanding for people of the environment they're getting into, or make sure they'll make sensible decisions once they're there. There's probably only so much that can be done about that.
I think the commercial operators are there because there's so much demand, and not the other way around. It might be possible to influence the crowd's behaviour through operators, but pushing too hard could just result in visitors ditching them and having the operators go out of business altogether. If DoC tried to put in too many commercial controls within park boundaries, visitors would merely find their own way in, or operators would start offering to do things like more cheaply dropping people on the State Highway for an extra 6km road-walk.
And following on from the cheap gear hireage thing, there's also the issue of actually convincing people they need to carry it all on a hot summer morning.
There's also a practicality issue. If up to 1000 people roll up on a particular day to walk over the crossing, and 650+ are woefully inadequately prepared (just a number I made up), does an end-of-the-track service need that many sets of survival gear immediately on call, just in case?
Or maybe it's not so unrealistic on the back of an envelope. If you try $1000 guestimate each for a set of good-enough safety gear that'd last an average of 2 years, try for 1000 sets total, you'd be looking at $1m over two years or $500k/year after gear depreciation. Let's naively double that to $1m/year to cover staffing, security, cleaning, whatever (more made up numbers), divide by 50,000 of the 80,000 walkers per year who might want to hire something, and it's looking at about $20 per walker to cover costs if it's a non-profit operation---probably less if everyone doesn't need everything (meaning less stuff needed to be bought up-front in the first place). After that, the main problem becomes how to reliably extract payment from people (including deposits) when they don't have any money or ID with them at the point of showing up. Perhaps that's also a conservative estimate depending on how cheaply good enough gear might be obtained in bulk orders, or it might be optimistic in other aspects. It wouldn't have to work exactly like this, either. Probably the most useful safety stuff people would need is good raincoats, warm thermal layers (polyprop/wool, gloves, hats), and decent boots (maybe problematic for one-off uses).
IMHO it's still much better to figure out how to train people to be as completely prepared and aware of responsibility for themselves as possible, long before they leave home. Unfortunately the way the TC is presently and widely presented to the masses (officially and unofficially) means this simply doesn't happen for a variety of reasons. Making it easier for people to go prepared after they've already shown up is just a back-up thing in desperation.
the buses turn up enmasse at particular times, htey would unundate and rental setup, people would give up waiting, you'd need so much gear, it's an unknown how many people would rent it, if the weather was good at the time i bet few people would bother,...
its the nature of places like national parks, people will always end up puting themselves at risk of harm.
the tongariro crossing is a big example, you can't mitigate all the risks, you coud have as many clothes as you want at the road end, a lot of people have a concept in their heads already of what the crossing will be like and for a lot of them that concept just doesnt include the need for storm gear, people would still ignore any gear being offered them and walk off into hypothermia or their death.....
last time i did the walk it started out a clear blue day, one lady who was with our transport decided to leave a warm jacket behind,,,, it was minus 6 and the wind was already blowing, the forecast was for cloud later on.... I advised her to take the jacket, she was a doctor.... and experienced at walking.... it was still cold in the middle of the day, the wind changed to the south.... i needed two thermal layers all day....
if a doctor isnt able to work out what clothes they need by arbitrarily making their mind up at the start of the track then how many other people are making those mistakes...
if you don't recognise that the wether in alpine environments can become life threateneing at any time then you are putting yourself at risk of harm.
the shuttle operators should make an effort to look after the safety of the people they are making a livelihood off and not just take the money and leave them to end up over their head in trouble...
Hence the need to have a serious public discussion about exactly what we're trying to achieve through the greater tourism industry with the Tongariro Crossing.
i'm all for unlimited access to the outdoors but in the case of the crossing it's often a recipie for disaster on th impact to the environment and peoples safety.
as experienced trampers unlimited access works in our favour, we are far less likely to get into trouble than the more inexperienced trampers doing the popular walks, but the higher the no's taking advantage of the unlimited accesses it works against the inexperienced they can get over their head easily.
some of the gradings doc gives to it's tracks are deceptive,
ones they call easy or moderate can still be hard for the less experienced trammpers. they should place more emphasis on the fitness and experiencecd required to complete the track. as well as how severe the weather can be at any time of year....
A thought on the gear. If the weather was iffy then some people without gear would opt not to go. Now make the gear available and they are more likely to go but can they even use the gear. Ive been tramping a long time but never used an ice axe or crampons. I like to think I know my limits. If I could get the gear would I be safe using it. I would have a better idea on how to use it than some people that do the crossing. Would they be safe enough to justify putting the gear into availability or would it encourage people to do things that at there level of experience is dangerous
