In another thread about Kime and recent events there talk about the merits of that and other huts got me thinking.
We need a thread to find the worst hut ever. I was going to post the following but it needs its own thread.
Waiotauru is like it because of the actions of some of its visitors. Most people that drive to a hut know how to leave it the way it should be left and members of the 4wd community have put a lot of time etc into improving that hut only to have it trashed by the few idiots.
I was at Travers Hut (also known as A frame) in Ruahinies yesterday That must rate in the terrible huts stakes and it hasnt been trashed except for a broken porch window and a little graffiti. Biggest problem was condensation dripping on the sleeping platform and snow blowing under the door.Summer time it doesnt smell very good
Someone had driven a 4wd up the sloping wall/roof of Travers A-Frame last time I was there ...
Any hut is a good hut. It just might take the right weather conditions to make it so.
true but any hut that requires the right weather to be good qualifies for this thread.
What huts would you never go back to unless they had no choise.
One of the worst in my experience was the old Purity Hut in the Ruahines. Fortunately it has been replaced by a modern hut now. We were in it in a blizzard. It was an unlined corrigated iron box without windows. The snow was blowing in under the eaves so there was spindrift throughout. It was so cold that only one out of 3 stoves would work. There was an open fireplace but no firewood. The only reading material was a Giddeon Bible. We spent two nights there and i would have to say that we were grateful for the shelter.
Maketawa Hut (Egmont National Park) because every time I've shown up there there's been at least one tramping club group showing up at the same time with ~25 people that includes a person who likes to scream at 2am about people supposedly slamming the door.
I also always remember Penn Creek (Tararuas) as a horrible hole with a leaking roof, but I've only been there once, started getting sick from day 2 onwards, and when the side-creeks came up over the track out we ended up with a 3-4 hour leatherwood and thick-dracophyllum bash in the rain up to Table Top after losing what we thought was a ground-trail up one of the spurs.
It's probably a delightful place in the sunshine. Maybe we should have stayed there, and I might have only remembered Penn Creek as a hut with a hole in the roof instead of a hut stuck inside a horrible hole.
So yeah, weather conditions. I reported the leaky roof and the helpful DoC chap popped out with some tools to fix it fairly quickly once they actually knew about it. The previous people had just left a bucket under the skylight which was nearly full by the time we arrived.
For me...
3rd place goes to the Washbourne hut in the Rakaia...any season
2nd place goes to the Caroline Biv South of the Wairau Saddle middle winter.
1st place has/had to be the Biv half way between the Lazyman on Mt White stn and Chest peak in the Puketeraki range... a single rotten canvas bunk on which slept a dead possum....which fell apart when I went to move it. It was wet and windy, nothing dry to burn, I slept on the floor...and what made it worse , it was late in the day and as approaching the biv, I could see the new station hut on the Lazyman in the distance.
Penn Creek when i was there last i thought was really good,Smiths creek shelter is pretty bad.Id only stay there in a storm.Got to be honest ive never liked Powell,no asthetic qualities whatsoever and always very busy.
Smiths is rough but ok. It is a shelter not a hut. I took a party of scouts there 7 years ago when it still had the top bunk Slept 17 of us and 4 or 5 others mid winter and no glass in the windows and a doorless door.
Bainiti is a true 4 bunk hut and beats it easy. Put a pack on the bunk there and something large left from under the bunk in a hurry. When you dont dare put your lunch down because something else will eat it its not good
@LBDuck: that is the old Nigger Bush Biv. Since crushed by snow and removed. It's only about an hour down through the bush to Cain's Camp hut on the Lazyman.
@pmcke: I would have considered you at least had one source of combustible material for your fire...hee hee
