interesting reading?

read page 52 of this edition of FMC's back country where they analyse MSC's report and rip it to bits. It doesnt stack up to statistical scrutiny https://cdn.flipsnack.com/widget/v2/widget.html?hash=fvtpsphv0&bgcolor=EEEEEE&fullscreen=1

Just reacquainted myself with an article written by Johnny Mulheron for the FMC in 2015. Really good advice in great detail on walking techniques, strategies and group management. https://wilderlife.nz/2017/03/safe-travelling-in-the-sub-alpine-zone/

Is there really much ground breaking there? It effectively says the most popular routes have the most "incidents". "A recent analysis conducted by MSC found the Tongariro Alpine Crossing had the most safety incidents over nearly a decade. In total there were 293 incidents – a combination of fatalities, search and rescues, and injuries – compared with 52 on the Mount Taranaki Summit Route, and 47 on the Milford Track over the same period." However, these tracks are generally more forgiving of mistakes compared to more remote/less frequently visited routes. "Of the 57 deaths, 21 occurred on advanced tramping tracks, 13 were on expert routes, six on intermediate tracks, four on easy tracks, and another 13 happened off track." It is not really rocket surgery...

The thing I saw was our backcountry isnt as deadly as we had been lead to believe. Not when you consider the number of people going into the backcountry and the skill and gear levels applied by some

the stats are deceptive there are better and more helicopter rescues than every now, people have far better comms on them and that is saving a lot of lives that in the past would have been lost in the mountains. theres a lot of people who are very lucky to be alive who barely had cell phone coverage and were able to message or ring for a rescue... or someone else comes across people in a bad way.. and the rescuers arrive to people who are getting close to death, and medical treatments are far better than they were decades ago. enabling people to survive injuries and conditions where they wouldnt have survived in the past i know its not totally translateable to tramping but if you are in the armed services and injured in combat today in a modern army you are 8 times more likely to survive than you would have been during world war 2 because of various technological and process advances helicopter rescues are right up there in saving peoples lives, getting someoene to advanced medical help quickly greatly increases their chances of survival.. you have high no's of people relatively inexperienced to Nz conditions as well. so without these advances , in my opinion more people than ever would be dying in the mountains... simple things like a massive increase in the no's of bridged rivers have also greatly reduced drownings which used to be very high in NZ.

Drowning used to be the most popular way to go in the bush.

> the stats are deceptive Yup, it should be weighted by how many people use the track a year. I last did the Tongariro Crossing with 2 buses full of kids. Other buses were in the carpark.