October Preview

special 21st anniversary issue New Zealand's magazine of the outdoors since 1991

$8500 of

know more, do more, live more

outdoor gear to be won! (see p16)

Fast lane

to Milford How to turn a quick buck from

the conservation estate

Bucket list trips

21 must-do tramping, biking and climbing adventures

Science experiment

How to get someone who hates the outdoors to love it

Plus

How to find safe food in the bush » A perfect day in Nelson, NZ’s sunshine capital » Mokihinui Magic – a tramp along this once-threatened river valley

How to

buy your next pack

+ 60 of the best day, hydration, overnight, alpine and multiday models October 2012

www.wildernessmag.co.nz NZ $8.95 Aust $8.95 incl GST

GET REAL.

Race day is never a best-case scenario.

Be ready. Award-winning Montrails, available exclusively at Macpac, the home of real adventure equipment.

New range for Summer 2012 available exclusively from Macpac stores Australia and New Zealand wide.

www.macpac.co.nz Photo Š Kevin Winzeler

2 october 2012

contents october 2012

REGULARS 32 Reluctant partners

42

How to get your loved ones into the outdoors even if they hate the outdoors!

36 Fast lane to Milford Are the tunnel and monorail projects about a better tourist experience or turning a quick buck?

42 CELEBRATING 21

YEARS OF WILDERNESS

42 Bucket List trips 21 must-do trips before you die

54 Conservation milestones How recreation and the conservation estate has evolved over the past 21 years

60 Outdoor fashion flashback Outdoor apparel then and now

62 Reader profiles Meet five readers who have (nearly) every issue of Wilderness

WAYPOINTS 18 Places

54

Deer Valley Camp, Fiordland 20 A perfect day The best day tramping in Nelson

23 Top 3 Double down on the adventure by climbing a volcano 25 See more Three places to see bush clematis in bloom

16

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Win your share of more than $8500 of outdoor gear!

36

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

1

4 october 2012

Glacial meltdown The Department of Conservation’s Castle Rocks Hut, perched above Cape Defiance, overlooks the Franz Josef Glacier.

Access to this stunningly located hut via the glacier has become increasingly marginal during 2012. In April DOC Franz Josef advised that an ice bridge over a subglacial river had become unstable and that foot-based guiding operations from the terminal face of the glacier had ceased. Climbers and skiers have been warned that access through the lower glacier may now be 'exceedingly difficult or not possible'.

In 2004 the glacier developed a depression about 2km from the terminal face. Continued thinning from 2008 has allowed the depression to develop dramatically and on January 16, the ice in the depression thinned to the point where some of the ice from the base of the glacier collapsed into the sub glacier channel, greatly reducing the thickness of the ice.

The NZAC has advised its members ‘to exercise their own good judgement in accessing the glacier from the terminal face.’ Increasingly difficult access to alpine locations is one of the harsh realities of shrinking glaciers.

- Mark Watson

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

5

Your trips, your pix What did you get up to last weekend?

Alex Roberts chose a perfect day to tramp to Mt Ruapehu’s crater lake from where he snowboarded down the mountain

Davian Marchant tramped to the Pinnacles in Coromandel Forest Park with his dad and uncle

Greg Dearsly celebrated his birthday by climbing 387m Pauanui on the Coromandel Peninsula

Auckland University Tramping Club members Matt Lillis, Harriet Peel, Richard Hosking and Sylvie Admore bagged Mt Makorako in Kaimanawa Forest Park

Nathan Bellamy and his tramping pal Gilly summited Mt Holdsworth on their way to Mid Waiohine Hut

Gary Scott and his daughter Brooke walked to Heritage Lodge in the Ruahine Range

Dargaville Tramping Club organized a four hour walk for 33 walkers near Maunganui Bluff and wild Ripiro Beach

Raymond Wong attempted to summit Mt Ngauruhoe

Send your pix

Send us photos showing what you did last weekend and you’ll win neat outdoor prizes. This month, all photos published get the photographer a Spork.

Head to www.wildernessmag.co.nz – search ‘last weekend’ – for full submission criteria.

Paul and Margaret Badger made an igloo at Whakapapa

8 october 2012

Silvia Horniakovia learnt to abseil at Temple Basin near Arthur's Pass

Ben Andrew tramped the Dusky Track with his dad

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KEEN.ZORB FULL LENGTH CUSHIONING FOR COMFORT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY

BRYCE STREAMLINED TRAIL SHOE FOR GLOBAL EXPLORATION Available in Men and Women.

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

9

Grand

Su bscribers

w in

win

n i w

AMK Trail 1st Aid Kit $74.99

$8500

of gear To celebrate Wilderness magazine’s 21st anniversary issue, we’re launching our biggest ever subscription prize giveaway! We’ve got more than $8500 of outdoor gear up for grabs with 27 chances to win!

Bridgedale WoolFusion Trekker x 3 pairs $128.97

If you’re a current subscriber when we draw the prizes on December 21, 2012 you’ll be in to win – so buy or renew your subscription now to ensure you don’t miss out.

Therm-a-Rest Antares Down Sleeping Bag (-7°) $699.99

Full terms and conditions can be found at www.wildernessmag.co.nz

Light My Fire Mealkit, Red $43.99

Victorinox Spartan Limited Edition Swiss Army Knife $39.99

MSR Reactor Stove $399.99

Silva Ninox Headlamp $99.99

Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite (regular) $369.99 Vasque BitterRoot Boots (winner selects size) $424.99

MSR Nook Footprint $79.99

ng Ampro Sales has put together this amazi er 16 october 2012 prize pack worth $5105 for one lucky subscrib

Scan the QR code to find out more about these products or head to www.ampro.co.nz

d Prize Bushnell Legend Ultra HD 8x42 Bino's $699.99

Runners-up prizes

SOL Escape Bivvy $109.99 Light My Fire Firesteel 2, Red $22.99 Silva Compass: Ranger S $79.99

AirZone 35/ND32 $249.95

Gregory Savant 58 Pack $299.99

Lowe Alpine has eight AirZone 35 and the femalespecific AirZone ND32 packs to give away.

A day-hiker’s pack with a superbly comfortable and breathable back system with numerous features including built in rain cover, external and internal zippered pockets, hydration compatible, large stretch mesh side pockets, unique walking pole grippers and stretch hipbelt and shoulder strap pockets.

Find out more about Lowe Alpine packs at www.outfitters.net.nz.

Bushnell BackTrack GPS G2 $149.99

Memory-Map Topo Premium, NZ $199.99 Stanley 1L Flask $99.99

Bollé Alpine Sunglasses $229.99

MSR Nook $849.99

Kovea Spider stove $80

We’ve got 18 lightweight Kovea Spider stoves to give away. The latest addition to Kovea’s stove range, the Spider iso-butane cooker weighs in at 170g and features an anti-flame system pipe providing a powerful and stable flame, foldable pan support legs and a low centre of gravity to offer better balance and stability. Find out more about the Kovea range at www.thompsonwalker.co.nz.

Subscribe now!

Fill in the card found inside the magazine or head to www.wildernessmag.co.nz www.wildernessmag.co.nz

17

Developers want to speed tourists to Milford Sound but opponents have raised questions about their true motives: concession-fetching

36 october 2012

Storm brewing

over Milford

Fraser Crichton

Is getting tourists to Milford Sound more quickly about creating a better visitor experience or turning a quick buck? Josh Gale investigates

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

37

21st anniversary

bucket list

trips

We’ve all got a bucket list – those trips we want to tick off before we clock out – but what’s on yours might not be on ours. So Wilderness canvassed contributors far and wide to compile a (subjectively) definitive must-do list.

Shaun Barnett/Black Robin Photography

Words by Shaun Barnett, Pat Barrett, Dave Mitchell, Geoff Spearpoint, Mark Watson, Richard Davies, Paul Hersey, Raymond Salisbury and Derek Morrison

42 october 2012

Tapuae-o-Uenuku, Inland

Kaikoura Range, Marlborough

Tapuae-o-Uenuku (2885m), the highest mountain in the Kaikoura Ranges and the loftiest outside the Southern Alps, has long drawn climbers.

Famously climbed by Sir Ed Hillary on an epic solo weekend effort when he cycled from the Burnham Military Camp during the early 1940s, the mountain is not particularly technical, and can be climbed as a simple scramble in summer. During

winter, however, snow lends it a grade 2- alpine pedigree.

Reaching the mountain requires a splash up the Hodder River, involving some 70 fords through two gorges – frigid during the depths of winter. It’s brown, rough country, with spiky plants including briar, matagouri and speargrass.

Past the second gorge, a track climbs above a waterfall, and on up to the Hodder Huts.

Up-valley, a boot-worn track winds across scree slopes to the junction with Staircase Stream, where a cairned route leads into a large basin beneath Tappy and its sizable neighbour, Mt Alarm.

Some route-finding is required to gain the summit ridge, which is narrow enough to prove exhilarating. The summit offers fine views over a great swathe of mountains from Nelson Lakes to Kahurangi and the Richmond

Ranges, and southwards across the Clarence River to the Seaward Kaikoura Range.

Access Up the Hodder River at Gladstone Downs, off Awatere Valley Road. Permission should be gained from Bev and Alan Pitts, owners of Gladstone Downs (03 575 7471), beforehand Time 3-4 days Map BS27

Climbers descend Mt Tapuae-o-Uenuku

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

43

Icy grip on Sir Ed’s peak This picture was taken on a weekend igloo-building mission on Canterbury's Sealy Range. Taken from Mt Ollivier – a well visited scramble and Sir Edmund Hillary’s first major climb.

It was a crisp, cloudless weekend, and we were treated to several great sunsets on New Zealand's great Maunga. Shot with a Canon 550D. Camera settings: 28mm – f/20, 1/6, ISO200.

- Em Oyston

Submit your hotshots to editor@lifestylepublishing.co.nz 96 october 2012

Built to last . .. u O y s e k a t e R u t n e v d a FOR wheReveR

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From daypacks for the weekend wanderer to hiking and hybrid packs for the hard-core adrenaline junkie. Mountain Designs has packs to fit all needs.

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97

© Wolverine Outdoors 2011

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Download our free app at merrell.com/barefoot For NZ ranging visit www.merrell.com/nz 98 october 2012