🏔️#54 - Top 10 Huts, Hectic Alpine Rescue, Quality Podcasts, & More

And we are back with the 54th NZ Hiking Newsletter, sent every week.

I’m guessing you’ve had enough carbs over the last couple of days to smash out that next trail. Or if you track your adventures on Strava, maybe some spicy level roasting via https://roastmystrava.com/ will provide some motivation.

As usual, 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.

Last week’s most popular link was again the hiking funny on Instagram. Maybe I’ll have to try making some funny’s next year…tbd.

Alright, let’s get into it.

This Week...

• 🔥 Cause Of Pouri Hut Fire Unknown

• 📦 TA Resupply Drama Update

• 🚁 An Impressive Mountain Rescue In Kahurangi Nati …

• 🎧 Podcast Recommendations

• 🏅 The Most Popular Bookable (Non-Great Walk) Huts

• 🛖 Clark Family Love Clark Hut

• 😹 Hiking Funny

• 🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

🔥 Cause Of Pouri Hut Fire Unknown

Whanganui National Park’s Pouri Hut was razed (a.k.a. burned to the ground) on December 11th. After looking at the site, investigators say they’re unable to determine what started the fire. What they have ruled out:

• wood burner

• gas bottle

• cooker

And visitors who left the hut earlier in the morning saw no indication of fire. Given the state of the hut now, it’s got to be hard to see exactly where the fire started (compared to if the hut were still upright).

Luckily, the fire didn’t spread further…kind of an interesting photo. But it does undo a lot of recent work DOC and volunteers have done in Whanganui National Park 😢 Full press release here.

📦 TA Resupply Drama Update

At the time of last week’s newsletter, 40+ packages were being held hostage at the NZ Post depot in Arthur’s Pass. That meant Te Araroa hikers arriving in Arthur’s Pass might not have their parcel waiting for them.

Fortunately, Tash De Goldi (Mountain House Hostel owner) was able to access the packages thanks to the police stepping in. Then NZ Post said packages would be available for collection 7 days a week from Arthur’s Pass Cafe (a.k.a. NZ Post depot). That should have been the end of the story.

But Sean Moran, who runs the depot, says he wasn’t aware of this agreement with NZ Post. Given he doesn’t seem to want his comments published to Stuff.co.nz reporters, he’s almost taking on the role of the villain voluntarily. Tash was willing to bet money she won’t be given access to parcels at some point…so it’s good to see a short term solution has been found, with the NZ Post driver meeting Tash herself to hand over the parcels directly to her over the holiday period.

It’s pretty silly the police had to get involved…full story here.

🚁 An Impressive Mountain Rescue In Kahurangi National Park

A big shoutout to Motueka LandSAR and Alpine Rescue Canterbury who made a successful rescue in Kahurangi National Park.

Last Friday morning, a call was made to the Alpine Rescue Canterbury team about an injured hiker with fractures and lacerations. It wasn’t until 20 hours later, early on Saturday morning the hiker was winched out by chopper.

In the time between LandSAR had helped the patient and then helped get the other members of the hiker’s party back to safety, while multiple ARC members got the patient comfortable. The conditions were nasty, and bothy bags were very useful as seen above.

There’s multiple people in each of those bags above, and they were crucial for a good result given they had to hunker down overnight. Carry your safety gear, people!

And a few facts posted from LandSAR about the year:

• 526 Search and Rescue Operations

• 598 individuals assisted

• 186,827 unpaid volunteer hours contributed

🎧 Podcast Recommendations

•  The Tramping Life | Celia Wade-Brown. Politics, Walking Festivals, and Te Araroa - listen here

  • Well played by Jonty (podcast host) on getting a guest I definitely didn’t see coming. This was a different way to hear from a politician, and she has done fun stuff (Te Araroa) to help the outdoors community in her own way!

• KORE Outdoors Podcast | Meet the 19-year-old Taking on Gore-Tex: Sam Digiambattista of Indersity - listen here

  • A cool interview with the 19-year-old who founded and owns Indersity. It’s a company that many would consider successful already. There are actual products, sales, staff, contractors, and now investors. There’s the fun parts where he chats about how and why he started the company, but there’s also good chat about rainwear tech. You’ll learn something new in this podcast.

🏅 The Most Popular Bookable (Non-Great Walk) Huts

DOC released their visitor survey, covering data from July 2024 to June 2025. There’s some interesting stuff in there, but the top 10 bookable huts (that are not Great Walk huts) are what got my interest. They were:

1. Pinnacles Hut (-)

2. Welcome Flat Hut (-)

3. Aspiring Hut (⬆️ 3)

4. Woolshed Creek Hut (⬇️ 1)

5. Waitawhea Hut (-)

6. Angelus Hut (⬇️ 2)

7. Powell Hut (⬆️ 2)

8. Cape Brett Hut (🆕)

9. Kōhanga Atawhai-Manson Nicholls Hut (🆕)

10. Mueller Hut (-)

So, a couple of new entrants and a little bit of a shuffle around. But Coromandel’s Pinnacles Hut (80 bunks) is still way ahead with 18,053 bednights booked (despite being closed for 6 weeks), with Welcome Flat Hut in a comfortable 2nd with 7,218 bednights booked. Cape Brett Hut’s renovation saw a 46% increase in bednights booked.

🛖 Clark Family Love Clark Hut

The Love Our Hut Facebook group is full of before and after photos of people cleaning up huts across the country. There are still over 500+ huts that haven’t got someone signed up to give them a tidy up this summer…just saying.

Sign up here: https://fmc.org.nz/what-we-do/campaigns/love-our-huts-and-tracks/

Outdoorman Dave also published a video (I haven’t watched it) of he and a group of mates cleaning up Crosbie’s Hut:

😹 Hiking Funny

🧔‍♂️ What I've Been Up To...

It was another uninspiring weather week, summed up by the light snowfall we had on the way up Ben Lomond on Saturday 😕 It was still fun, but still. And there was a loop of Mount Crichton, a great wee trail that locals enjoy, but it doesn’t quite have the zing for Instagram.

While these tracks are always lovely, I’m getting the itch to get out of Queenstown for something new soon. But I want the weather to play ball too!

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

p.s. get your friends to sign up to the newsletter: https://nzhikingnewsletter.beehiiv.com/subscribe