🏔️#52 - Fires, Red Head Wine, Epic Photos, Sleeping Mat Drama, & More.

And we are back with the 52nd NZ Hiking Newsletter, sent every Friday-ish.

It’s always silly how I have ideas on starting the core of the newsletter during the week, but here we are once again. It’s now late Friday night and I’m trying to work out why I took screenshots of various hiking things I saw earlier in the week.

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

🍾 A Ghost From The Past Leaves A Bottle Of Wine

A fun story via Fiona, a member of the Wakatipu Tramping Club. 11 members hiked to Meg Hut last week to clean it up as part of the FMC Love Our Huts campaign. While there, they came across a bottle of Roaring Meg Pinot Noir with a note (photo below).

If anyone deserves a bottle of wine as a treat, the team of 11 (pictured here) from the club who got the hut looking spick and span do. But they left it unopened for someone else to enjoy! Too nice.

For reference, this page on the fiery redhead, Maggie Breenan will help make the note make sense. I won’t forget about Roaring Meg anytime soon 💃

Shoutout to whoever the pseudo-Maggie is!

🔥 Another Tongariro National Park Fire

It was less than a month since the devastating fire that burned ~3000 hectares in Tongariro National Park. But this week a new fire started, burning 300 hectares in a similar area to the previous fire. This got a lot less press coverage but there was word on how the fire started. Incident controller Renee Potae said “It does seem to be unintentional, a misstep with a vehicle basically.”

It’s getting dry in some spots around the country, so use https://www.checkitsalright.nz/ before you consider making a fire.

Speaking of fire, Whanganui National Park’s Pouri Hut was destroyed by fire in the last few days ☹️ They haven’t said what started this one.

🏎️ Paid Parking Trials Start On The 15th (Monday)

Punaiki Pancake Rocks, Franz Josef Glacier, and Mount Cook (White Horse Hill) start their paid parking trials this week. Hopefully it goes smoothly…but there’s likely to be issues, just because.

They did update the T&C’s to ensure that track volunteers can get an exemption if they apply for it.

Full details.

🚁 Social Media Isn’t Making It Easy For Rescuers

While the three heli rescues performed in the Queenstown region earlier in the month weren’t attributed to people being overly confident after seeing social media posts, it is a concern for rescuers.

In short, it looks easy on your phone…but there’s so much context you don’t get to see…and you probably don’t want to see that before the dopamine hit runs out.

It’s not just NZ that are struggling with it as officials in Tasmania are trying to get a similar word out too.

Don’t rely on social media. Make sure you get research from various sources, most importantly from DOC visitor centres.

With the Wye Creek rescue, sometimes you make bad decisions that are clearly not right in hindsight. What the two lads did right was not compound the bad decision-making, giving them a chance at survival.

😹 Hiking Funny

I haven’t had this happen to me…yet.

🗒️ Other Track News Etc.

• Three NZ photos made it into the 2025 Northern (and Southern?) Lights Photographer of the Year. I’m guessing people know not to go wandering into all ice caves…Tori obviously knows what she is doing. More details and photos here

• This is American-focused, but it’s interesting anyway, as they do produce solid content. These are the 5 ultralight 2025 trends from AdventureAlan.com:

  • Dethroning of Smartwater

  • Tariff-Based Price Increases

  • Updating the Classics

  • More Ultralight Freestanding Tents

  • Proliferation of Alpha Direct Derivatives (the Nitro Pullover made of Alpha Direct is one of the best pieces of gear Macpac does)

    Full article here.

• For the tree nerds, a story about how American Chestnut trees are on the comeback from being functionally extinct (hmmm, roasted chestnuts). Full story here.

• A short interview with Emilie Bruce, the 11 years old who has bagged over 400 huts. Read here.

• Due to demands on popular hiking trails, Madeira (Portugal) is going to make you book some trails in advance (still free). Will NZ come to this? The Tongariro is somewhat already. More details here.

🎁 A Couple Of Competitions To Enter

• @insida_nz x @kristinamonts Voucher Giveaway - enter here (entries close December 14th)

• Real Meals x @adventures_with_emilie Giveaway - enter here (entries close 9pm December 15th)

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

With one day off, it was another summit of Queenstowns Ben Lomond. Can never go wrong.

But rather than coming down the way most go back into Queenstown, I went over from the Ben Lomond saddle to the Moonlight Track and came out at Arthurs Point. It’s a cool variant, one which is always a lot longer than I think it is, and has very few people on it.

And you don’t have to walk all the way back to town. Once you reach Arthur’s Point, you can catch the #4 bus.

Have a great week, hike it up. I’ll mention the reclassification of West Coast land next week.

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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