DoC Great Walks huts: Is there a better way to allocate bunks to trampers?

A better way? Tramping plans were thrown into disarray when IT issues delayed Great Walk bookings. Photo / 123

OPINION:

Thirty years ago the Great Walk network was established to help protect New Zealand’s “great outdoors” by giving everyone fair access to huts on the country’s most popular hiking walks.

Today, they risk spoiling the trails for everyone.

The annual “bun fight” for bunks on the Milford and Routeburn tracks has become something of a tradition. Thousands of hopefuls log-in on opening day to try and book one of the 120 bunks on the “finest walks” in the world. Since moving to the online booking system, it’s become a bit of a lottery.

The Department of Conservation cancelled its planned booking window for the walks yesterday, while it tried to fix IT issues that had caused hour-long web outages.

Instead of hundreds of people missing out, there were tens of thousands of unhappy trampers.

Many put the blame squarely on DoC for ruining their tramping holiday. Particularly international walkers, who said they had stayed up into the small hours of the morning to try and secure a place.

For the first time since the pandemic, international visitors were able to vie for a place, albeit at a higher rate than domestic visitors. From those that were able to book a place on the Milford Track, last week, 35 per cent were from overseas.

Being unable to gauge quite how many people would be logging on from abroad certainly didn’t help the IT issues.

Some of the walkers said delaying the release of bunks by two months had knock-on effects as to whether they book their trip to New Zealand or not.

“We’ll be on the Inca Trail or the way to Namche Bazaar while you get your act together,” was the subtext. The Routeburn can wait.

Having marked the milestone of 30 Years of the Great Walks project last year - then Conservation Minister Kiri Allan praised the increase of domestic walkers and an increase in Kiwis taking up outdoor pastimes, over the pandemic.

The fact that the Milford was booked in three minutes flat was celebrated as a good thing.

Out of a network of 950 backcountry huts, have the Great Walks become too big for their boots?

In their current form, they are essentially unviable.

It is not a problem that is unique to New Zealand. In countries like the United States, a growing number of popular hiking trails and day walks are only available by ballot.

For years, the Wave in Arizona has been running a monthly lottery for permits to visit the desert sandstone formations. There’s a similar ballot for local walkers too, run the day before. It’s presumably better than playing “red rock, paper, scissors”.

215,500 applied for a permit to visit The Wave in Arizona. Only 4 per cent were granted. Photo / Brian Witte , AP

Other trails such as Utah’s Angels Landing and California’s Half Dome trail have started similar allocation programmes.

It’s all a response to the same problem: ever-more people are wanting to visit wild places. Ideally places with few other people there. Since the pandemic national park and conservation services around the world have reported similar increases in demand for nature.

So, should we be running a Great Walk lottery, rather than the shambolic scramble that inevitably happens on booking day? Maybe.

However, more efficient ways of allocating bunks don’t address the fact there are more people wanting spaces on our popular Great Walks than bunks available.

The Department of Conservation has the unenviable task of serving two apparently contradictory masters. The department has a commitment to “conserve” the heritage and the ecology of New Zealand’s whenua and wild places, but also to give Kiwis access to public conservation land.

While New Zealanders have a right to access the trails, they are also responsible for their impact, wear and tear. The Great Walks were created in response to this challenge. It’s a nuanced notion that is hard to balance with the sometimes self-righteous belief in the “right to roam”.

Back in 1965, an Otago Tramping Club won wide public support for a “Freedom Walk” hikoi, protesting their right to walk the Milford Track. They were celebrated for their stand against the NZ Tourist Hotel Corporation, the national body which held a monopoly on guided walks.

If a mob of disgruntled walkers rocked up in Milford without a DoC booking today, they’d likely not have the same support.

There is little appetite to increase capacity on the trails. While facilities are occasionally improved the number of bunks on the network has remained constant over the decades. It’s probably for the best, there will be no condominiums built on the Kepler any time soon. But it does mean each year it gets harder and harder to get a spot.

The only way to increase the number of bunks on the Great Walk network is to increase the number of Great Walks.

It’s a solution that the Department has only recently reached, with the addition of the Paparoa in 2019. As the fourth most well-subscribed trail on the network the West Coast trail has been a huge success.

This year the Hump Ridge Track is expected to be admitted onto the network in October, becoming the 11th Great Walk. Although for the foreseeable future, bookings will be run through a separate website managed by the Tuatapere charitable trust.

Given the chaos of the past week, this might be a sensible decision.