by Mick Abbott

We love our huts. There’s a special feeling that comes from rounding a corner on a track and seeing at the edge of a clearing a hut’s simple roofline and with it the prospect of a fire and warm night. They’re places packed with stories, a glimpse of which can be found in the hut book, the dripping of wax, and the worn surfaces that speak of the many nights people have spent here protected from the elements. Each of our public huts is a portal to the great outdoors, the places from which we step out into te taiao and nature, and a multitude of backcountry experiences.

But we do our huts a disservice if we only focus on their individual charms. For our network of public huts and tracks is so much more. It is the backbone of how, over many years, we have been able to care for nature and keep safe in the backcountry.

Much of our current network came out of a desperate need to give hunters access and shelter so they could protect our forests from the ravages of deer. In time they also became bases for possum control, and later still key biodiversity corridors including the many tracks along which intensive trapping programmes are now also run. A number of huts are the seasonal bases for threatened species protection work, whether for whio, kiwi, or as in up in the Poulter part of the kakariki karaka /orange fronted parakeet programme. Here the huts are used for weeks and even months as intensive trapping, monitoring and other science is carried out.

The work of volunteers, including the Backcountry Trust has been pivotal in maintaining this network in ways that allows DOC and others to focus on its threatened species work. These volunteers make sure these simple structures are kept in good order so that the life of the building is assured well into the future, with each journey in and out an opportunity to maintain the track, monitor traps and report on issues that could be affecting bridges and access.

And then there’s the higher profile great walks and other iconic tracks. Here rangers make sure people, who are often on their first trips into the hills, travel safely while also being inspired by the conservation efforts and adventures that our network of public huts and tracks makes possible.

Underpinning all this is a kaupapa of looking out for each other. Our huts, tracks and bridges are our shared way of making sure people are also valued and kept safe. Their locations come from hard-earned knowledge. For instance, the Clough cableway, currently under discussion for replacement, was built in response to a drowning on the Three Pass tramp. Likewise, each of our huts, as Geoff Spearpoint, Rob Brown, and Shaun Barnett so powerfully record in ‘Shelter from the Storm’ saves lives, both from storms and also rash decisions to venture out across rivers that are still too marginal to cross.

Of course, we must always keep considering the balance of the network. For instance is it best to spend three million dollars on a Great Walk Hut as has happened with Mintaro Hut, or are those funds best used to build fifteen backcountry huts and ten bridges that provide access and shelter at key conservation sites? Likewise, how can simplistic accounting rules be adapted so that huts built 70 years ago, and still going strong, don’t get earmarked for removal because the accountancy firms along Lambton Quay seem unable to find a way for DOC to structure its assets and balance sheet in ways that doesn’t lock up DOC’s operational funds?

Regardless, it is essential to remember that our public huts, tracks and bridges belong to everyone, and while DOC is tasked to manage the network, they are there for us all to look after, protect and use.

Which brings us back to what we can do to help protect and strengthen our network of public huts, tracks and bridges. FMC believes there’s much work to be done, and this article is to introduce our forthcoming ‘Love Our Public Huts and Tracks’ Campaign. We have a number of activities underway over the next 12 months. With your help, we plan to have every hut visited in November, so we can report first-hand on their condition (and the tracks and bridges taken to access them), and also from hut book entries record the many ways they are being used to make a difference to conservation, being in the outdoors, and saving lives. We hope clubs and trampers from across the country will plan their trips so the whole network is covered, with more details on how to be involved coming soon!

We’ll then work with experts to structure this information so we can share with everyone the first nationwide depth report into the state of our public network huts, tracks and bridges. Again, we’d welcome relevant experts to be part of the reporting team. In the first half of 2025, FMC will host a national symposium and workshop on our public huts, tracks and bridges network, with everyone involved in their maintenance, protection, management and use invited to take part.

Our public huts, tracks and bridges matter, and we’re certain that across every group there’s a keenness to see this national treasure protected and strengthened. They are part of the legacy people committed to nature and the outdoors passed on to us, with it now being our turn to make sure they are passed on intact to the next generation.

We’d love you to be part of our Love Our Public Huts and Tracks campaign. If you have a special hut in mind you would like to visit this November, you can now register your trip on our web page. We’ve also set up a Love Our Huts Facebook page for everyone involved to connect and share the love for our huts. Please contact mick.abbott@fmc.org.nz with your ideas and feedback. Keep an eye out for updates in forthcoming issues of Backcountry and the Newsletter on ways you can get involved.

This article was first published in June 2024 issue of Backcountry magazine. Previous issues of Backcountry magazine are available online on our web page. Print issues can be found in many places, including backcountry huts.