And we are back with the 41st NZ Hiking Newsletter, sent every Thursday/Friday.

I'll let you know what’s going on in the hiking scene in New Zealand, along with other related bits and pieces I find interesting.

If you this your mates might like reading this, send them the link to subscribe 🐱

Alright, let’s get into it with a…

Quiz

How much poo paper did all of the DOC offices order over the 2024/2025 period (12 months)?

Time to bust out your poo paper math. For reference, one standard roll of Purex Toilet Paper is 22 metres long. Way longer than I expected! If every kiwi (we’ll say there’s 5 million) only used one toilet roll a year (universal bum guns would get us closer to this goal)…that’d be 110,000 kilometres of poo paper ordered.

I’m sure there’ll be some of you out there who’ll give this a good thought. Dinner chat, perhaps?

A. 1,500 kilometres

B. 5,100 kilomeres

C. 15,500 kilometres

D. 51,000 kilometres

The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.

🗒️ Track News Etc.

• The Blue Pools (north of Wanaka) are finally reopening tomorrow (Saturday)! The Blue Pools bridge was closed in May 2023, and DOC were hoping to get the new one up and running last summer, but standard delays have led to May 31st being opening day. This will allow better access to the Gillespie Pass Track on days when the river is flowing too high to cross…and you don’t want to take the jetboat upstream.

  Sarah and Nathan from New Zealand Travel Tips got a sneak peek of the track on Wednesday, with the new track and boardwalk looking the goods.

  They have a bunch more photos you can see here. It all looks so new and tidy.

• Last year DOC announced they’re going to trial paid carparks in three sites around the South Island. Now they’re after feedback, particularly from locals, at the Punakaiki and Franz Josef sites. You can send feedback to PaidCarParking@doc.govt.nz

• I wouldn’t say the mission to the airplane wreckage (Tararua) is on my bucket list, but it’s something I’ll 100% get around to sometime. The video above from Charlie Ruck (18 years old) is a good depiction of what it’s like getting there. And a high-quality vid!

• Well it appears that the new process for DOC opening bookings for the next Great Walk season was rather successful. The Milford Track was always going to be the real test of the system, and I didn’t see any complaints…sure, people would love to have been further up the queue, but the queue did keep moving and there were no massive crashes. There’ll be tweaks in the future, but by all accounts, well done DOC.

• Yesterday (Thursday May 29) was Everest Day, the day that Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first to summit Mount Everest. Sir Ed’s charity, the Himalayan Trust, is focusing on something different this year, as it’s 50 years since the first women, Japan’s Junko Tabei reached the tippy top of Everest. There’s an article about it all on Stuff with comments from Lydia Bradley…one of NZ’s greatest mountaineers (with Everest 6 times).

• Mountain Warehouse opened up it’s newest store on Queen Street, Auckland last week. It’s their 26th store in NZ, with no signs of them stopping. Globally they’ve got 390 stores, with NZ their third largest market. While it’s considered a lower-end outdoor brand, they’re finding a market! More details here.

• If you’re heading out on a hike to a hut this weekend, start writing down some thoughts (some call it journaling I believe). Kemi & Niko have started a cool wee hut intentions project, where all submissions will be published. You can find out more here.

• WOWSEER. If you haven’t heard about the Glacier collapse in Switzerland…

😹 Hiking Funny

🔎 How To Read Product Specs With A Critical Eye

The following is from the Backpacking Light Newsletter. Read this with your coffee/beer, and you might learn a thing or two for when you make your next big purchase. 

You can tell a lot about a product if you study its specs, but you may have to dig a little.

Take quilts. Most people look at temperature ratings and weights and cost, and that's about it.

But there's so much more to the story about how to carefully and critically select a quilt based on its specifications.

Let's consider four quilts today:

• Hyperlite Mountain Gear Quilt 20 °F (size R)

• Enlightened Equipment Enigma 950 Custom 20 °F (size RW, so it's about the same girth as the others on the list here)

• Nemo Pulse 20/30 °F (size R)

• REI Magma Trail Quilt 30 °F (size R)

  
  And their basic specs:

1. The HMG, EE, and NEMO quilts all have very high warmth indices - in fact, they rank among the highest warmth-to-weight products of all quilts we've surveyed.
    

2. But there is a notable difference between the fill volume in the HMG quilt and the fill volume in the NEMO quilt - the HMG quilt has about 17% more fill volume. They are about the same size (within 5%), so it's not unreasonable to assume that the HMG quilt is a little bit warmer.
    

3. The EE and REI quilts have similar value indices - indicating that you are getting a lot (of weight-normalized warmth) for your money.

Things get more interesting if you consider the value index of quilts as they go on sale. For example, at the moment the NEMO quilt is 25% off and REI quilt is 30% off.

That brings the value index of the NEMO quilt to about $1.62 and the value index of the REI quilt to about $2.11.

I love the idea of a value index because it helps those who are on a tighter budget to figure out how far their money goes when they buy new or upgrade their gear. So to get into a high warmth-index, premium-material quilt for a value index of $1.62 (the NEMO Pulse) makes it a very good buy.

And if you're quilt-curious and want to try one out without breaking the bank, or just want a quilt in your quiver for warmer summer trips, then the REI Trail Quilt is an outstanding value when it's on sale - in fact, it's the highest-value-index quilt on the market at its current on-sale price.

You can read the full quilt report here.

🎁 A Couple Of Competitions To Enter

• Summit Sweat Sauna Giveaway - enter here (entries close May 30th)

• Avalanche IQ Quiz with Mountain Safety - enter here (closure date unknown)

• Bagger’s Quiz with Hut Bagger - enter here (closure date unknown)

• Remlite Launch Giveaway - enter here (entries close - unknown)

• Win a year’s supply of Em’s Power Cookies & Bars - enter here (entries close May 30th)

• Arc’teryx Winter Weekend Giveaway - enter here (entries close July 8th)

• Take Your Best Shot - Mammut Photo Comp - enter here (entries close July 15th)

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

With only one full day off last week, it was another day to stay local with a run from Arrowtown connecting up some of the trails. While many in Otago know about the number of epic trails Arrowtown has to offer… often people come into work (Macpac) and ask about what trails they should do nearby. When I mention Arrowtown, they seem a bit confused. They do go good! I need to update this Arrowtown Trails post on Chur New Zealand.

🤔 Quiz Answer

C. 15,500 kilometers.

That’s according to this press release from DOC. That’s stretched the length of NZ almost 10 times.

So if my Purex maths earlier was correct, the average (of 5,000,000) kiwis uses ~28 sheets of a Purex Toilet Paper roll from a DOC facility every year. But that doesn’t factor in tourists, so who knows really.

It’s all a bit pointless, I guess? It’s kept me entertained writing this for 15 minutes, so I’ll take it.

Do take a read of the Press Release above. You might use a little bit less after hearing some comments from DOC Ranger Daryl Sweeney.

Have a great week, hike it up.

As always, reply to this email (or message me on Whatsapp +642041702764) with anything and everything…I’m happy to chat.

Chur,

Jub

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