Closed Tracks

Another closed track instance has come up here locally. After all the winds last week a windfall came down on a local track about 100m from the start and there was part of the trunk suspended in supplejack above the track. DOC identified the problem on Friday, didn't have time to clear it so closed the track for the weekend and then cleared it promptly on Monday morning. Top marks to DOC for identifying a hazard and then dealing with it as quick as they could. The closure effected the whole track with a sign at the other end which would have been about 2kms from the windfall. The windfall would have been inconvenient to a family group who might be pushing a pram up the track but was nothing special to a tramper who would simpily go around it. I have asked the question if track closure was the appropriate thing to do. It means that anyone who uses the track is techically committing an offence. We were running a pest control operation at the weekend so anyone who used the track was in breach even though most of the work was done off track so a windfall on the track was the least of our worries. It would seem to me that a warning of the hazard would be a suffient way for DOC to discharge their health and safety obligations yet allow those who wish to assess the hazard themselves if they wished to. I am not sure if a legal mechanism to do that exists so I have emailed the local oficial to ask if that is possible.