Record trampers putting pressure on DOC

Great Walks policy is pretty family friendly, kids are free in all the Great Walks Huts until they turn 18: https://booking.doc.govt.nz/Prices.aspx?sg=RBN&sgn=Routeburn%20Track%20-%20Great%20Walk I think that's a great incentive to kiwi families to get out on the Great Walks, I don't mind paying the higher price for myself if I can get a guaranteed free bed for my three kids and say a couple of extras at Howden or Routeburn Flats or Falls. Doing a Great Walk as a family it's more a problem with getting a booking, having to make a booking so far in advance to get a space, It's a problem with kids if the weather turns out to be atrocious when the time comes and we have to pull out as I couldn't take the kids over the high part of the Kepler or Routeburn. I've tended to do more short there and backs at either end of those tracks out of season. The Great Walks huts make great places to take the kids in winter. In to Howden, Routeburn Flats or Falls, or Moturau on the Kepler. Easy track, nice big hut with plenty of space, snow on the ground outside.

the vast majority of the increasing numbers on the routeburn and kepler are independant day walkers who are adding to the sewerage and paying nothing to use them. theres more and more people who are running the tracks, people running the routeburn in a day.. thousands can go to key summit on any day... hundreds will go up the routeburn valley... its ok if you know which places to avoid, I know mckellar hut on the greenstone gets regularly overcrowded, theres only one doc hut instead of two on the caples now, and that route is busy, the hollyford does and the gillespie pass circuit esp siberia hut. tablelands circuit in kahurangi, mt owen route, the rees dart when the dart was open, and will be reopening again. various huts around the north island especially the upper north island get over full. any small hut on the Te Araroa trail can get overfull regularly now. thee main tracks in nelson lakes are chocka in summer you have to plan well ahead if you want a lot of the booked huts in summer, great if you get a booking, and you need to check on your favourite huts because more and more of them are being turned into bookable huts because they are so over subscribed.

@TararuaHunter: "Not sure why DOC is continuing to make these media releases. trying to convince the public, so that the politicians will listen?" Is it DOC that's doing it? Or are DOC staff merely responding to media interest? I can't see any obvious recent releases relating to this on DOC's media releases page, but I'm sure not all releases get published here. http://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/ There are definitely NGOs and lobby groups, though, like Tourism Industry Aotearoa and Federated Mountain Clubs, which are both trying to push discussion points on overcrowding with hopes of different outcomes. At least one of the big things in the last month or so was from a report funded by TIA saying that DOC and the government should allow more privatisation of public resources. There could also be media influence coming from the political side. Sometimes the political branch of the government does this stuff to gauge public responses, or to prepare us all for some announcement about a decision they're making. Anyway, this has been going for ages. I wish the government would hurry up and be clear about what it actually wants to do. All of this has been a consequence of a stupid amount of non-planning over the last X years, and just pumping in more and more people without bothering to seriously care about what effects it might have nor how to deal with it. In some ways it'd be nice just to have an actual concrete proposal with some numbers and analysis behind it, linking actual problems to actual solutions and a real budget and clear plan. That way everyone could comment on, instead of reflex one-line statements from random people all over the place about what should be done ("let's charge foreigners more! that'll fix everything!") with no clear connection to what the problems are.

@izogi "Is it DOC that's doing it? Or are DOC staff merely responding to media interest? " think a hut warden was quoted? They are dept employees and would (or should) only be speaking to the media with the ok of management

@waynowski "any small hut on the Te Araroa trail can get overfull regularly now" noticing this in Canterbury at the moment. The Hut books are full of TA SOBO/NOBO. It's a continuous flow throughout the day so the more "inbetween" huts have probably never been so busy

How many more people are now walking the TA compared with just a couple of years ago?.. Couple of years back, there was only 5-7 hut entries a week from TA walkers in the Richmond Range huts... So very far from being overcrowded. Maybe I should pop back up there to see if there is any truth to the overcrowding claims. DOC seems to complain when too many people are using huts, but are also equally capable of complaining when too few people are staying in the huts... Every few years they seem to be threatening to remove huts due to them being underused. The core of the problem is that DOC is not getting funded enough to maintain the existing infrastructure, and the number of trampers are really a non issue. Huts deteriorate at a similar rate wither 10 or 1000 people sleep in them a year.

estimates from someone who hosts TA walkers says there could be a thousand or more TA walkers this year which is easily double last years no's and counting, he has several a night at his house alone, he advised me to steer clear of smaller tararua huts on the TA over summer due to overcrowding, i've read blogs of full huts.

Sounds promising, the more people on a track reduces the chances of DOC removing or neglecting facilities along the route.

"The core of the problem is that DOC is not getting funded enough to maintain the existing infrastructure" That and DOC's effectively funding its response to the tourism boom from its recreation budget. Money which used to be going to many of these facilities is being pulled away to cope with tourism in some very specific places.

Almost all of the entries in West Sabine hut pages early this week were TA walkers. Stayed there with a group of six of them, great bunch of people from US, Canada and Germany. Can see how problems will occur as Waiau pass created a bottle neck at Blue lake until conditions improved. From the volunteer hut warden talk of some hideous conditions over the pass at the 'forks' camp area with toilet paper all over the place. DOC probably going to need to put in a toilet there she said.