the best option is for the shuttle companies to offer packages renting gear, they can kit them up before the bus leaves. take a bit extra for those who decide they want more gear at the road end....
i doubt doc would want hawkers at the road end.
does anyone know if any transport operators do this?
Perhaps it is, but I don't really see that as anything more than just trying to do what's already being done but doing it harder, even though it's not really working imho, although some others might think otherwise. Anyone who did it would need a concession and be doing it properly according to some agreed protocol, and there's no reason why a system couldn't be coordinated with transport operators. But it was just an example of an idea in any case and now it's a distraction from my earlier point.
Much more important, I think, is to take a step back and take some serious qualified looks at things like why people decide to walk the crossing, how and where they get their information from, what unofficial sources of info float around and how it's processed and prioritised in people's heads, if there are possible effective ways to influence it, and ultimately how to ensure fewer people do silly things by whatever means are deemed acceptable (and what's acceptable is another big question on its own). I don't even *know* what needs to be looked at, but a serious evaluation of this with some qualified minds would hopefully figure that out.
Right now, though, I see the tourism industry making a huge thing about how awesome the Crossing is because everyone wants to sell the outdoors to visitors and make lots of $$$ for NZ, and meanwhile the official and unofficial info floating around in backpacker land about safety is conflicting, often counter-intuitive for people who don't understand, and unwelcome. I do have something of a moral issue with making such a big thing out of attracting people in exchange for cash into the country when we know that so many people are putting themselves at risk as a direct consequence, even if it's technically their own fault because there are boring signs and websites that told them what they should do.
Having seen what's happened to date, I'm not convinced any serious research and change to this will actually happen until after there's been a major tragedy in which a lot of people actually die. Until then it's just authorities with shallow budgets, loose unverified ideas and other priorities trying to cover the problem by putting up signs, telling a few companies to lecture their customers, and waving a pointy finger at visitors after they've been bad.
mate, analyse all you want, the sheer no of people who do the crosing means you are bound to get people who just dont think, as i mentioned even a doctor experienced in the outdoors wanted to leave behind a warm jacket on a cold day...
people do things on impulse. most day walkers and a lot of overnight walkers who are overseas toursits just make their mind up on the day to go walking, they'll be lucky if they do much if any homework at all. it's often just a spontaneous decision, lets walk the crossing, everyone else is doing it, how hard can it be and off they go with whatever they have or don't have..
as one of the shuttle operators said on tv, people turn up hell bent on doing the track unprepared and nothing the operators can say will disuade them from going.
marketers will markeet ice to the eskimo's if they can, any angle of concept they can pitch, it's just a challenge to them.. acentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.....
htey are paid to promote and they'll keep plugging whatever looks popular. theres no consequences for them if people die doing the actitivites they promote....
tongariro scares the shit out of me if the weather even looks like changing, i was on ruapehu once, it was raining and in an instant all the water on my clothes and glasses changed to ice, i've never seen anything like it since and that was 25 years ago... imagine being caught out in those conditions without enough gear..... doesnt stop the marketers promoting the place, neither does the skiers who ski off bluffs to their deaths... if you pay enough money you will find someone to promote jumping off tall objects without anything to stop them.... remember the nazi party? and goebels propoganda? that was the beginning of modern public relations and marketing.... i'm not suggesting modern marketers are the same as them, but htey still use similar principles to promote the crossing.... the nazi's got their pr ideas straight from freud and jung on how to manipulate peoples desires..
