The Tramping Report

Arthurs Pass Management review

DoC's Poma Palmer has been beavering away for the past year on a review of the Arthurs Pass National Park management plan. The draft of this is supposed to be released around now.

I've been told Poma was likely to try sliding in some sneaky changes to make it easier to remove Ranger Biv. Well I don't know Poma so I've no idea if he will, and I've even less idea of why he would go to that sort of trouble. But people do say there are those in DoC who just don't like people in the mountains at all, unless they're restricted to a ticketed place on a tourist track and paying big bucks for the privilege.

I hope we manage to keep Arthurs Pass as the great natural environment adventure land that it's been for the past three generations. The Kiwi approach to free, unrestricted tramping is very much a part of our culture.

Whatever, here's a link to an item on DoC's  website outlining the review process.

Keith gets a buzz

Outdoors all-rounder Keith Dekkers once told me he only went tramping for the social contact. He said his real love was what he called 'buzz sports'. These were things like skiing, cave diving, flying a microlight, mountain biking, etc. It was the adrenaline rush he was after.

Well I heard Keith recently got a real buzz out of a trip to Stewart Island.

He was down in remote Port Pegasus with a big group of kayakers, mostly just paddling around. However they'd also done the usual thing down there, walking inland to climb Bald Knob and the Frasers Peaks.

Well unfortunately Keith got himself stung by a bumble bee and he had an allergic reaction to it. He had to be lifted out by helicopter and flown to hospital in Invercargill. There he received the standard treatment - a hefty injection of adrenaline.

Yeeeehaahh!!!!

Avalanche Pk tramp/run

Jo Milne mentioned she'd been up Avalanche Peak on the weekend and that there'd been people running up the mountain. She seemed impressed, and I agree it's enough of a grunt just walking up.

Anyway, it was a reminder to me that the 2006 Avalanche Peak Challenge was coming up shortly and the people Jo had seen were checking how their training was coming along.

Then tonight Honora said Dave "Wattie" Watson asked if we would help with marshalling again. I enjoyed myself so much last year I wouldn't want to miss it.

The event is being held on Saturday the 25th of February. That's only two weekends after this one. As usual it has sections for trampers and runners. However DoC have placed an upper limit of 150 participants so I'd recommend getting an application in quickly if you want to secure a place.