Take a hike
New Zealand’s network of huts provides shelter for hikers and creates a community of strangers and fellow travellers, finds Jeremy Cronon
Exploring New Zealand’s network of huts for walkers
Finally scrambling out of the bush of New Zealand’s South Island, I paused, surveying the alpine valley in the foreground. Then I saw it. Nestled against a slab of moss-covered schist stood a modest structure, no larger than my 8-by-12foot college dorm room. With excitement and relief, I clambered toward Cameron Hut.
As a 10-year-old, entranced by the cinematic landscapes of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring, I wouldn’t have guessed that backcountry huts would become a focal point of my travels in New Zealand. Sixteen years later, I had come for the forests of Lothlorien, the peaks of the Misty Mountains, the hills of the Shire. But it was in the huts that I immersed myself in the culture of those landscapes and spent time with the people who knew and valued them most. New Zealand’s wild spaces deserve their fantastical reputation, but it is the country’s commitment to this vast network of
I found four bunks on one wall with a potbelly stove braced against another
public huts that fosters something unique: a community of strangers even in the most remote backcountry.
Approaching Cameron Hut, I wondered what I would find inside. No two huts are the same. Some are blaze orange, others beige. Some are more than a century old, others less than a decade. Even if they look similar from the outside, each hut has its own quirks, stories and memories. They are a product of their environment, the people who use them and their moment in history, all of which define a hut’s character.
In 1987, the newly established Department of Conservation took responsibility for maintaining New Zealand’s hut network and the web of tracks that connects them. Some huts originated as outposts for miners, hunters, foresters, or shepherds, others as way stations for alpinists, scientists, tourists or tramping club members. Now, nearly a thousand of these structures are open to trampers (as overnight backpackers are known) for minimal fees.
Pushing open Cameron Hut’s weathered door, I found four bunks on one wall with a potbelly stove braced against another. A metal countertop stretched beneath the window with a pair of water buckets and two stools stashed below. A wall shelf contained outdoor magazines, a copy of The Girl on the Train, candles of assorted lengths and a jar of ear plugs. And there, over by the window in its familiar bracket on the wall, was the volume I had learned always to peruse when I arrived at one of these huts: the intentions book.
Setting my pack down, I started scanning its pages. Emblazoned with the Maori greeting “Kia ora,” the logbook serves as a guide to each hut and a registry for all visitors. Trampers use it to record details about their party and intended route – hence the name of the book – along with their comments and stories. While some of this information could prove useful in an emergency, it amounts to a beloved anthology of the shared experiences that define New Zealand’s huts. One page might contain mountaintop epiphanies, off-trail discoveries, weather and trail conditions, speculations about whether a bickering couple would survive the trail ahead and whimsical evaluations of the previous night’s snoring. Together, the entries form a living document of hut culture itself, where stories, knowledge, advice and humour pass freely among strangers.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was seeking: the entry my new friends Joanna and Logan had made here a few weeks ago. Our paths had intersected on the Dart Track, a popular, multiday trek through the mountains north of Queenstown, where we had compared lists of mustvisit huts over dinner. I was here
because they had told me not to miss it. Cameron Hut wasn’t glamorous, but it felt perfectly suited to the needs of a solo traveller.
There are four tiers of huts in the system. Basic huts are any combination of walls and a roof that will pass for “very basic shelter,” but not much more. Standard huts are more robust but still spartan structures with a few added amenities like mattresses, water access, a toilet and a wood stove – although if users of such huts want a fire, they must forage for downed branches to maintain the wood supply. Serviced huts feel similar to their standard brethren, but are generally in high-traffic areas or above tree line, where the Department of Conservation must supply fuel and upkeep costs skyrocket. Great walks huts are the most heavily visited and expensive of the bunch, with gas stoves and resident hut wardens.
No matter what its tier, I found every hut worth visiting.
Putting away the intentions book, I took advantage of the warm afternoon sun to explore the area around Cameron Hut. Just outside the door, a small shed protected a wood pile and well-worn axe. The “long drop,” an outhouse over an abnormally deep hole, sat nestled in a thicket of silver beech 150 feet north of the hut.
To the west, I followed the river until I discovered the series of deep pools beneath a pair of towering waterfalls that Joanna and Logan had told me to visit. Laying my towel on a rock, I braced myself for what would be an undoubtedly frigid but equally necessary bath. Not a bad place to call home for the night.
When you arrive at a hut, any sense of urgency melts away and is replaced by the easy rhythms of hut life. When a predictably unpredictable New Zealand storm blows through, you close the windows and open your book. When your stomach rumbles, you start dinner. When the sun disappears behind the mountains, you light a candle or flick on your headlamp. In a hut, you face simple choices.
As quaint as they may seem, huts also serve a very real need. They provide essential shelter in New Zealand’s most extreme environments. Even hardened adventurers could be persuaded to choose the protection of Iris Burn Hut over the characteristic downpours of Fiordlands, or the warmth of Mueller Hut over the unpredictable snowfields of the Southern Alps. Huts are at their finest when weather is at its foulest.
More often than not, I shared huts with other travellers. On the Motatapu Track, I spent two nights playing euchre with three Coloradans. I met a French Canadian couple on a sunny afternoon at Greenstone Hut, only to run into them again after a soggy and treacherous day on the Demon Trail. Weeks later, we ended up crammed together in the back seat of a car hitchhiking toward the Traverssabine Circuit, an extended route through the mountains of Nelson Lakes National Park.
Conversation always flowed freely, often focusing on the weather, trail conditions, hut recommendations and the inevitable foreign puzzlement about US politics. Every now and then, we would talk our way through less familiar territory. In the shadow of the Darran Mountains, an ensemble of Kiwis, Americans, Canadians, Aussies and Brits had a lively discussion about their respective relationships to British colonialism. During dinner at Midcaples Hut, I confronted my own ignorance when I ate with a man from New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific I hadn’t previously known existed.
Wriggling into my sleeping bag, I opened The Girl on the Train, knowing that sleep wasn’t far off. In the morning, I would add my own story to the intentions book. Then I would tidy the hut, close the door behind me, and head down the trail toward my next night’s shelter.
© NYT 2018
For booking information for all huts requiring reservations: booking. doc.govt.nz; for general information about huts, backcountry hut passes, hut etiquette and an interactive map of New Zealand’s huts, see doc.govt. nz/huts