Hut use

i have thought about this subject myself. it always amazes me the amount of people who stay in a hut for the night and dont write in the hut book. i think maybe they dont have hut tickets and dont want to get caught out. yet it is for their own safety that they should put their details in the hut book, as well as for doc use. it must be hard for doc to judge hut use numbers when they probably well know that a high number of people dont leave their details in the hut book.i guess in an ideal world everybody would pay for staying in huts, then doc would have a lot more money to spend on maintenance of the huts.

Hut use numbers are needed for maintenance funding. At Holly Hut - Egmont NP, a monthly calendar put up near the cooking facilities, requests one of the overnight hut users to write only the total number on it. That's it.

I agree with the comments here on hut books. For some reason people seem to think that if they fill in the hut book, someone will be checking up on them for hut fees. Entrys in the hut book are the only way DOC can judge hut usage so it is important that we all record out visits, even if it is just stopping in for lunch, or even camping outside. My feeling about hut fees is that all non wardened backcountry huts should be free. I think it is quite unfair for the honest ones to pay while the dishonest ones don't. Maintenance on huts is not dependant on hut fees, infact I doubt if they make enough money from backcountry hut fees to pay for administering the ticket system. There has been a surge of maintenance on huts in the last few years but that was because the Government gave DOC some extra money to do the job and also required them to account for huts as assets rather than liabilities. The existance of a system of backcounty huts is Government policy, not dependant on how much money DOC can raise. However, I guess all this could change under a National Government (sigh!)

On the issue of removing huts, there is a lot of talk about removing huts but the only ones I have ever seen removed are derelict and get very little use anyway. DOC's Management Plan for the Kaimais is to remove a lot of the older huts in there. However, despite a lot of talk, most of those huts still exist. I am a bit more relaxed than most about hut removals. Often when a hut is removed it reveals a good camping spot. Sometimes this is why the hut was built in the first place, because it was a good place to camp.

Over the summer, quite a few bivs have been replaced in Arthur's Pass, including East Hawdon and Sudden Valley (this biv was one of those grim dog-box ones). Also there's the new Hawdon Hut to replace the one that burned down. I was pondering how accounting for huts as assets changes their management. Is it that the cost of maintenance is lower than the loss in asset value if unmaintained?

I did read somewhere that there has been a change in the accounting policy on huts. In the past huts were just seen as a cost so the less money spent on maintenance the better. Now I think they are required to see huts as an asset which has a value and if they do not maintain it, it will depreciate. Hence we are seeing replacements and maintenance being done.

Isn't it funny how the way you keep your books changes things.

And so we come back to the issue of recording the amount of hut use. We can all do our bit to educate those we see in the bush but some how it goes against the grain to interfere in anothers outdoor experience by offering unsoliceted advice in a police like manner. I notice that a number of high value tracks start with a traffic counter set in the track how unobtrusive would it be in the doorway of a hut.

In the doorway of a hut would not work because people enter and leave them repeatedly. I might go into and out of a hut door 10-20 times per stay. Also people just walking further down the track often have a quick look in the hut.