Looking for a less-beaten path
1–10 of 20
Page: 12
Hi all,
I'm an American student spending the semester here in Wellington. I'll be heading down to the South island for two weeks in mid April, and was hoping to get some advice from locals on spots to hit. I am an experienced backpacker, having done a number of 3+ day trips, also I'm proficient at navigation, having done some bushwhacking in the Sierra Nevadas and Utah canyonlands (which are admittedly relatively devoid of bush).
For my trip my partner and I are doing the Milford Track and also likely a 2 day trip out to Welcome Flats hot springs area. We'll be spending most of our time around the west coast. I'd like to find some hikes (1-3 days) that are a bit less crowded than how I expect these two routes to be, and was wondering if any of y'all had suggestions on places to hit or resources to find tracks.
Aditionally, I'll be coming back around Late June, early July to do some extended (5-8 days) tramping, probably in the Nelson Lakes area, and would love suggestions on areas to hit there too!
Thanks for your input and sorry if questions like this are posted very often, but the forum here is rather difficult to navigate/ search through.
I guess ideally I would like to avoid crowded huts/ campsites... free camping is more my thing, but the only routes the DOC has to offer (which seems like a great resource) are centered around these kinds of areas.
Was going to recommend the same. Maps are the best place to start. Try nztopomaps.com if you just want to browse them online. Or take a bit of a harder look at the doc website. Doc manage over 1000 huts and god knows how many 1000s of km of tracks and routes. The majority of these are lucky to get more than one party through a fortnight and many get visited by less than 10 a year. Not sure where they gave the impression of only looking after the tourist traps .... but it was a wrong impression.
For the west coast the remotehuts.co.nz website is also handy ... but bear in mind it assumes a high skill and experience level, so what they call easy/good routes would be hard/challenging in the eyes of most of our European or us visitors.
As far as busyness the following are the only popular spots you might avoid on the west coast Sth of greymouth
Copland (welcome flat). V. Busy - but the neighbouring Karangarua is very quiet
Styx / Arahura - moderately busy. Maybe up to 5 parties a week.
Day walks from fox/Franz - very. Busy
Apart from that you're likely to have anything more than a few km from the road to yourself - maybe bump into a hunter or tramper every few days. Maybe not.
I have done a few tramps on the Westcoast, a year or two back I tramped into Grey Hut, there was only a handful of entries for the last year. A very quite area. Although, I would not really recommend that trip.
A much more interesting tramp, would be to visit the Thousand Acre Plateau. It typically takes 2-3 days following decent tracks, depending on how much exploring you want to do. From Larrikin Creek hut you can climb the Needle and the Haystack (a little exposure), or explore the hundred acre plateau. Outside of Easter, you are very unlikely to encounter others in there.
Another, even less popular track in the area is to stay in the Matiri Valley and visit Hurricane Hut... But it is probably less scenic compared with the Plateaus.
I'm just back from 3 days in the Styx valley on the West Coast which is one of the more popular valleys with trampers. I saw one other tramper on the track heading out as I was heading in and that was the only other person I saw for the trip duration. At the hut and bivvy I stayed at I was the only occupant but a couple of individuals a tramper and a stoat trapper had been in the valley earlier in the week.
This trip was unusual in that I saw another person. Going through my diary I see that in my previous seventeen solo West Coast trips no one else was encountered. (a few of these trips were to areas with no huts or tracks)
So andopotato it is very easy to avoid crowds on the West Coast. That is even if you are using the DOC or Permolat hut and track network. Two other huts not mentioned that get a fair bit of use by local standards are Mt Brown & Cedar Flat.
Thank you all so much for the detailed replies. I guess I've just been seeing hoards of people on the more popular 'must dos' like tongariro and abel tasman and rashly expected that this would be true elsewhere. Also really glad to hear about the business of most backcountry huts... I was thinking I would have to freedom camp most places since I didn't want to risk not getting a bunk in a first come first serve hut. Do y'all normally bring an overnight shelter + sleeping pad on trips you aim to stay in huts on, just in case you can't get a bunk, or would you just crash on the floor anyways?
I'll take a look at those websites and areas that have been suggested. One more question that just popped into my head, do y'all use nztopomaps for topo printouts for your hikes or is there a better resource? Since I'm going to be hitting a bunch of different area I probably won't be buying waterproof maps for each.
@andopotato: Do y'all normally bring an overnight shelter + sleeping pad on trips you aim to stay in huts on, just in case you can't get a bunk, or would you just crash on the floor anyways?
Yes, I always have a tent and sleeping mat. Also carried in case of injury.
Keep in mind that tramping in NZ is different to the US - weather is highly changeable, frequently good one day, torrential rain and cold the next two.
Yes, take tent, mat, sleeping bag etc - mostly for safety. Also take a PLB. You need all the gear you'd take on a winter trip (snow and ice unlikely, unless at altitude). Mid April is Easter so the main tracks will have people but huts are unlikely to be full (and, yes, if full and no alternative, crash on the floor).
1–10 of 20
Page: 12
Search the forums
| Forum | Tracks, routes, and huts |
|---|---|
| Started by | andopotato |
| On | 31 March 2017 |
| Replies | 19 |
| Permanent link | |
Participation in the forums signifies acceptance of forum rules.
In order to manage spam, new members are limited to 1 post every 10 minutes.
Formatting your posts
The forums support MarkDown syntax. Following is a quick reference.
| Type this... | To get this... | |
|---|---|---|
| Italic | *Italic text* | *Italic text* |
| Bold | **Bold text** | **Bold text** |
| Quoted text | > Quoted text | > Quoted text |
| Emojis | :smile: :+1: :astonished: :heart: | :smile: :+1: :astonished: :heart: |
| Lists |
- item 1 - item 2 - item 3 |
- item 1 - item 2 - item 3 |
| Links | https://tramper.nz | https://tramper.nz |
| Images |  URL/of/image |
 |
| Mentions | @username | @username |