Hut2Hut Archive
Includes articles/posts transferred from Hut2Hut.info about international topics, as well as some others that are not necessarily up to date or very substantive. These serve as an archive for the hut2hut.info website, which will eventually be decommissioned, but which has formed the foundation for the US Hut Alliance site and will be discontinued.
Note: Limit 20 posts per page, so click below to see more.
New Zealand Hut Operations: Notes on ten selected DoC hut operations
Notes on ten selected operational issues, with links to NZ DOC manuals, standards and other documents. INcludes track (trail) extent, maintenance and building; waste and gray water management; logbooks; historic huts and conservation; citizen action to maintain huts; and reservations system.
Cross-cultural Comparisons of Huts: methodological notes
Thoughts and questions, using NZ as an example, about what questions to ask and how to develop a more intentional method of using cross-cultural comparison as a lens for studying and comparing hut systems internationally.
New Zealand Huts : Building blocks of the national hut system
Review of key policy and operational principles and documents that serve as the building blocks of the world’s largest hut system. Links to many extremely useful documents providing details on how the national hut system is managed.
Seven questions about the future of NZ huts
As contemporary society evolves, what is the future of the world’s largest hut system? Outlines a few of the questions that most interest Ime and that I would like to discuss further with Kiwi colleagues.
New Zealand Hut Wardens – roles and responsibilities
Roles and responsibilites of the folks who look after huts and trampers. Based in part on our week of volunteering as hut wardens on Nelson Lakes track.
Pilgrims Progress: New Zealand Hut Peregrinations
Newsy update on our three months tramping around NZ huts and tracks.
New Zealand Great Walks: user perceptions
There are currently 33 Great Walks Huts and 95 Serviced Huts in the DoC system. This combined total of 128 huts constitutes 13.3% of total DoC huts (963). The user perceptions summarized below are from these two hut categories. While a small percentage of the whole system, these two categories attract the most intensive use and controversy.
This summary of user perceptions is derived from two sources: 1. from discussions that I gathered in three months of interviews and travels in NZ, and 2. from the results of an academic survey reported in the article “Tramper Perspectives on New Zealand’s Great Walks in a time of transition” (in New Zealand Geographer, 2017, p. 1-15, by Joe Fagan and Robin Kearns). [
Shelter from the Storm: book review part two
Part two of a review of this seminal work on New Zealand huts.
New Zealand Huts – How Many and What Kinds?
An attempt by an outsider to convey to other outsiders a quick visual, numeric and organizational overview of the wild and wonderful range of New Zealand huts. The count, or “Tally”, attempts to enumerate “huts” (broadly construed) in categories corresponding to how they are discussed by hut folks in NZ. The description, or “Taxonomy”, briefly defines these same categories and illustrates them with some examples that give a sense of the variety of hut designs.
Shelter from the Storm: The Story of New Zealand’s Backcountry Huts: book review part 1
Review of the best book ever written about huts and about their connection to culture. A tour de force that changed the way Kiwis understood their hut culture. Must-read for folks interested in NZ huts.
Private Huts in New Zealand: questions and reflections
Observations on private huts tracks in NZ, with particular focus on the Banks Peninsula Track and the Tuatapere Hump Ridge Track (which has since become one of the Great Walks). American backcountry entrepreneurs might be able to learn something from these New Zealand small businesses.