Hut Fees

Hi @madpom. I'd have assumed staff charge stuff to time codes and it gets factored in somehow, but to be honest I don't know. I did explain, when I requested a clearer breakdown of maintenance expenditure figures, that it was for the purposes of comparing with revenue figures for regular tickets and passes in the Annual Reports. From memory I had the impression it was understood, hence the clarity about corporate overheads and capital not being included. So you think DOC would consider staff time as an overhead even if there were considerable time involved? I can check the correspondence when I have time.

@izogi “After filtering out the mansion huts on separate booking systems, ticket/pass/receipt revenue for the whole network covers roughly 40% of operating expenditure for the whole network, according to figures I pulled from Annual Reports and OIA'd about a year ago.” And most of that is from the serviced huts that are in the backcountry pass system “but it can't simply shift money around between the two without risking Treasury getting mad.” Yep, they can, and do. I’ve done it :) Both ways  That, and biodiversity funding has gone up, and recreation (backcountry type) has gone down That's why local DOC managers are keen on the recreation consortium funding, its being used on Core backcountry huts as well as minimal/non maintenance ones

Every year I buy an annual pass and sometimes I get really cheap accommodation and other years its expensive - depending on how much I use it. I think Doc does a fantastic job with little thanks, or money, from higher up, So I don't mind if some years I subsidise them. We are just so lucky to have this hut system.

It's somewhat odd to read that people really believe "taxes are the price way pay for civilisation" and then refuse to pay hut fees. It seems some people only pay for civilisation when there's a gun to their head. Wait...

Back on topic: I like the idea mentioned here of purchasing a hut pass as a way of funding DoC, but does anyone know if hut passes are used for hut maintenance or do they end up in DoC's general fund? UPDATE: just read this in an earlier comment: "Hut fee income received by DOC, is part of the departments annual budget, and that income is used to do department work"; so that answers my question. That post is well worth reading for other observations.

TOTALLY agree with @Kreig and @JETNZ. I don't think I could go in to the bush with someone who wasn't going to pay their dues. And also wasn't surprised from the recent tone of things as to who the original poster was....

the govt mentality on conservation recreational infrastructure has swung massively, in the mid to late 20th century the govt saw it as an investment in the health of NZers to spend a lot of money in cutting endless tracks and building hundreds of tramping and hunting huts to encourage NZers to get out and exercise and do recreation in the mountains.... its widely believed forest service huts were mainly built for deer cullers but the govt specifically stipulated to put a large of huts in the outdoors to cater for recreation for the general population as well. it was great as a teen to be able to spend your spare time in the mountains with no accommodation charges outside of the main national park great walk huts... how many people arent paying or hut fees because they'd struggle to afford them? are students and kids free in huts? they should be.. not any more, the govt want more user pays and tough if you cant maintain the increasing public funding required to maintain those huts. DOC recently declared that they are going to look at removing huts that dont show enough activity in the log books, how many huts that will affect we can only guess..

If people can afford fuel, they can afford hut fees. In most cases they offer excellent value for money. Must be remembered that free huts are still quite common. One thing I do, which is a bit naughty. Is that I rarely pay the full amount in large DOC barns... but save the tickets and put the extra tickets into small remote huts. How does DOC determine wither a hut is free, or standard? I been in some quite derelict standard huts, but plenty of free huts which are comparatively modern and much better maintained. One example would be Poor Pete's Hut, which is new and free (the old one was derelict and free), while the nearby standard category Larrikin Creek Hut is showing its age (but still a cool hut).

I"d imagine some trampers will hitch hike to get to their tramps because they might be that strapped for cash... i remember as a teen it was hard to get money out of my parents, i remember , not having money for film for my camera let alone anything else for hut fees, after all my transport costs for one trip were paid for...

Admin overheads for paying can also be a factor, IMHO. eg. I'm presently in Taranaki. If I don't have tickets and decide I want to head up the far side of the mountain and stay in a hut on a whim, I must either drive all the way around the mountain and up the road to either the North Egmont or Dawson Falls Visitor Centres, or go all the way into New Plymouth or Stratford, and make sure I'm there during opening hours. I can appreciate why some people without accessible DOC offices are tempted not to bother when they're in that situation. Why, in 2016, can we still not print out tickets at home, or even order them via an app and carry them around on a smartphone? If duplication is a concern, then maybe compromise by only allowing people to self-print tickets for specific date ranges and huts. Make sure each printed ticket has a unique number (so any warden knows they're separate tickets), and then with modern cryptography tech it's easy to make a simple smartphone app to scan a barcode and let a warden, or anyone else, verify that the info stated on the ticket is authenticated by DOC and hasn't been changed. If the choice for someone is to actually get into the outdoors, or to stay at home because they're paranoid they don't have the right payments organised to make their intention legal, I'd much rather they actually go into the outdoors. Even when the costs are low, it still needs to be simple to actually pay those costs without having to go to disproportionate effort.