the Te Araroa Trail
madpom poses a good question about the TA in his article.
why do so many people especially foreigners all walk the TA exclusively and there are so few people walking off the TA....
the reasons could be many
the amount of public information being diseminated widely about the TA is greater than most other tramping tracks and routes around except for tracks like the great walks and some day walker.
the TA is even promoted on mainstream websites,
often this is the only information a lot of these people have about tramping in NZ. and or they dont hav experience walking off mainstream trails
some people want to use pre prepared information about established routes and or arent good at or confident walking off mainstream tracks or creating their own route.
the people walking the TA often know or expect there to be other trampers around on that route and like the sociable atmosphere and or the perceived increased safety perception of having other people around outside their own group, or if they are walking alone, having other people around at some point even if they arent physically walking with them some or all of the time.
a lot of people doing long distance trails are into doing established known long distance trails .
often the logistics of walking established trails can be a lot easier than making up your own route. the established trails have a reasonable ability to resupply without great difficulty. often you only need half a weeks food if that before your next resupply and don't have to carry larger amounts of food all the time
established long distance trail are generally reasonable quality tracks or there is a perseption of reasonable quality. and the people walking the long distance trails dont want to walk on rougher tracks...
24 comments
Maybe its an English thing - where every square kilometer has dozens of foot tracks and every garage or post offcixe sells local topomaps ... you just grow up wth the expectation that there'll be thousands of walks out there and knowing the easiest way to find them is look at a map.
But the 1/3 of those Te Araroans were English & the people I meet in real backcountry are never English (expats excepted). So maybe not.
Cant see me doing the TA, just doesn't appeal. mainly because it doesn't follow what I think are the most interesting routes, in either island
A trip down both island axial ranges, (avoiding the high difficult stuff) would be the only way. Generally avoiding the main tramping routes.
Most have no appeal at all, to me
the masses tend to go to the easier places to follow..
It simply comes down to box ticking. Plus the Facebook generation.
These are fit and capable people they can organise a tramp and read maps. They are neither unmotivated or lazy.
Someone from Norway who posts they've done the PCT and the Te Araroa trails gets more props from the international community than saying they spent a week in the west coast mountains. We know that the latter is a tougher proposition but it has no credentials anywhere else.
It's the same for saying you've been to the Pyramids or Macchu, or seen the northern lights.
If you wonder why they do it ask yourself why you post half the things you do? Why don't you just keep it too yourself? We are social beings, we like to share that we are out there doing it and are proud of it.
Is it not common for people to follow some of the lengthier UK trails from start to finish? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-distance_footpaths_in_the_United_Kingdom
@gaiters - think you've just demonstrated the point. I Lived in Peru for a couple of years, visited many times more. Travelled to dozens of archeological sites there but never had the desire to brave the crowds at Machu Pichu.
Down to personality, I suppose.
some people either dont think about travelling into the lesser known areas or are afraid without having extensive information on it. others want to visit the lesser known areas
I was reading about amundsen, in the classic book "the last place on earth". the author said he wasnt just an explorer, he was a discoverer, he wanted to discover the unknown areas... repeating the already visited areas held no interest to him, the unknown was the only thing that mattered to him, he spent his whole life pursuing that...
for others there is too much fear or doubt in the unknown to venture there
For the same reason I get bored going on the same tramps. It's the redline stuff I'm into.
often theres less skill required to do the long distance established trails. less navigation. less camping in exposed locations at higher altitudes. often the skills of the people doing the long trails isnt that high... some are novices to tramping.
ironically the TA is rougher than most long distance trails and requires more skill to do and catches out a lot of the people doing it, and quite a few abandon it and go and do other tracks or cherry pick the TA
Have you done a long distance trail Wayno?
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Forum | Tracks, routes, and huts |
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Started by | waynowski |
On | 15 April 2017 |
Replies | 23 |
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