How many Huts have you visited?

Hut Bagging.... an interesting side bar to tramping I have been keeping a record but only show first visit not repeated. I would be interested to know how many there where in the North Island alone. I think ive managed about 150 so far.

Info from the "Hut Bagger" site records that there are approx 360 NI huts still there. [Another 70+ NI huts are recorded as having been removed] Not being a NI tramper these days or interested in hut bagging up there I'm unsure how comprehensive this list is? However I suspect it probably contains the vast majority if not all of the current DOC huts that are available for public use plus a smattering of other ownership public land huts and just a few huts that are not on public land.

Hut baggers. Frank and I did a circuit on pastoral lease land and bagged 4 of their huts in one day. Bloody long walk though and a lot of it on 4WD tracks. Then passed the old Mt Somers Hut on the way out.

what about removed huts do the visits when they existed, add to the list? ie some huts will be counted twice or removed huts, visited before they went

In addition to the long history of huts which, I read, started with hunting, are huts the reason some/many trampers go to the woods?. I wonder if there were just trails and no huts, would many tramp knowing they will be camping only lost its fun?

Its a question often asked, especially by visitors from other countries where huts are a minor feature of the outdoor hiking experience. Here - they're an important part of our backcountry heritage but definitely only one part. Huts - apart from early farming etc - really started with tramping clubs in the 1920s. There are many people for whom the huts are not a central part of the experience. The best part of the hut network was developed to serve people who live and work in the hills. Most of us used the huts more when we started, retreat to them when the weather turns severely unpleasant, and enjoy the extra comfort when we get older. Many of the best parts of our backcountry are not served by huts.

I don't think I consider huts a fully central part of the experience, as I don't usually go to places simply for the purpose of reaching huts. But for me they're definitely an important aspect. To me, aside from the practicalities of having them (sometimes it's nice to just dry out), they also mark often-isolated places where others have been, and left a mark. Even if I don't visit or stop at a hut, it becomes an opportunity to look up some history and learn more about people who've visited that place before, whether it's trawling through recent lines in the hut book or looking up who built it and what they did. They're very well recognised waypoints along a journey and often make good stopping points where you can meet and share the space with other random people whilst cut off from the rest of the world, whether that's inside or outside or somewhere nearby.

Can not agree more. If I can speak for all, we do not tramp to mark off as many huts as possible. We do so for love of tramping... but apart from the roof and stories they tell you, their number also give you a rough scale as to how much of wood you have explored or can be explored... of course that scale will fall miserably short of what is really there to be explored ... ever!

@TararuaHunter yes a visit to a subsequently removed or replaced hut does count. Here is the web address of the hutbagger site; http://www.hutbagger.co.nz/ You would be in a position to know how good the data base is for the NI huts. I've helped them improve the accuracy of the data base for West Coast huts. Unfortunately the Googlemaps database that the Hutbagger site uses is a bit geographically challenged and sometimes West Coast huts though marked in the correct place end up on Canterbury or Otago hut lists or vice versa.

My NI spreadsheet lists 288 north island backcountry huts. That includes all the DOC bio huts from AMIS that aren't in the public hut list, and excludes anything you have to book or pay for with something other than an annual pass. It also includes the unofficial huts I've been to / been told of which are confirmed to be real huts, rather than overhyped tarp camps Matt