Archive Of Remote Huts Removed Or Lost
This section contains some of the huts that have gone or been removed from the website area.
Original photos of huts that have since been modified or replaced on their existing site
can found the relevant hutpages.
Cropp Hut
(Cropp Hut: Photo Andy Innes 1981)
Cropp Hut was one of my favourite Huts. It was located in the Cropp basin, an idyllic
hanging valley with tussock flats surrounded by alpine forest, ringed by peaks of Galena Ridge.
The basin provided
high-level access to the upper Waitaha and Mikonui catchments.
Cropp Hut a six bunker, originally with open fire, modified by the Met Service in
the late 60's. It was used as a base for the monitoring rainfall and riverflow.
The Hut was insulated and lined, and had a
coal range installed. The insulation was
the Hut's undoing when it was washed off its piles by a flash-flood in the early 90's.
DOC went in planning to repair the Hut, but that the sodden insulation
had rotted the frame beyond salvation. Permolat has proposed that a hut or
biv designated for removal be shifted up to the Cropp basin,
but DOC don't seem keen on this. Pity!
Jumbletop Biv
(Peter Rouse at the newly built Jumbletop Biv: Photo Ron Turner 1957)
Jumbletop Biv was already a flattened mass of iron when I first traversed Jumbletop in 1976.
It was built in 1957 at quite a high altitude in a flattish hollow and was probably crushed by snow
quite early in the piece. The Biv was built by P.R. (Jock) Fisher, Merv Ellwood,
Ross Courtney, and Ron Turner of the NZFS. Ron Turner was kind enough to
send me a couple of photos (double click on the photo for the other one)
and confessed to being embarrased now about the
graffiti on the rocks.
Knobby Ridge Biv
(Knobby Ridge Biv looking over to Mt. Robinson: Photo Andrew Buglass 1977)
Knobby Ridge Biv was located on a long, bumpy spur running off the Diedrich Range
between the Hokitika valley and the Kowhiterangi Plain. It was a second
generation NZFS biv with a corrugated iron roof and
louvre windows. Knobby Ridge was a fair old grind to get up to even when the track was in good
condition.
The Biv site had grand views out over the Kowhiterangi Plain a reasonable sized tarn for water.
The track was starting to overgrow in 1977 at the time of my first and
my only visit and it took us 5 or 6 hours to get down. NZFS did some maintenance in
February 1984 and the Biv
was in mint condition in the late 80's when DOC in one of its more inane moves,
removed it to use as radio shack down on the plain.
What a waste!
Noisy Biv
(Duncan Hamilton at Noisy Biv: Photo Glenn Johnston 1975)
Noisy Biv was located on the TR of the Noisy Creek basin in the Whitcombe Valley.
Built in the late
1950's, it was a half-way house on journeys between Frews Hut and Cropp Basin Hut.
Noisy Biv was not
maintained by DOC after it took over from NZFS, and became steadly more delapidated over time.
It was blown off its piles at some point, was designated for removal in DOC's 2003/ 4 Review, and
removed in 2006. We found in an irrepairable state in the Hokitika Dump and used a few of its intact
rafters and some of the iron cladding to repair Whitehorn Biv, which removed at the same time.
The track up to Noisy Basin will be maintained now by DOC as part of a circuit over to Mikonui Spur
Biv. A track down from the Noisy Creek tops into the Cropp basin
is seriously overgrown now and probably not useable.
Rapid Creek Biv
(Rapid Creek Biv: Photo Glenn Johnston 1975)
Rapid Creek Biv was a short-lived structure in a lovely spot and became
a classic example of the insanity of human extentions (bureaucracy).
It was located in the Hokitika catchment
on the
North faces of Mt. Bowen in the head of Rapid Creek. It was built in 1974,
one of the last huts built by NZFS in Westland. A third generation Biv, Rapid Creek was lined,
and had two bunks. It commanded great views out over Rapid Creek and up the Hokitika valley, and
hardly anybody went there. Getting there involved climbing up the Miserable Ridge
tops track and dropping down a gut into Rapid Creek, then following the Creek
up into the headwaters where the Biv was located.
It would still have been in mint condition in the late 80's
when it was removed along with Knobby Ridge Biv,
at significant cost no doubt, to be
used as a DOC radio shack.
Seven Mile Hut
(Seven Mile Hut: Photo Glenn Johnston 2008)
Seven Mile Hut was an iconic NZFS roadend hut located in the lower Taipo valley.
It was built in the late 1950's, a standard six-bunk design, and extended
and modified some point later.
Accessible via a gravel road and farm track from SH 73, it
was vulnerable to being trashed by hoons, but always seemed to
restore itself miraculously to some level of homely, semi-dereliction.
Local hunters and possumers would sometimes adopt it and
patch it up, or add items to make it cosier.
DOC never did any maintenance on it after taking over from the Forest Service,
but the Hut itself was always dry and usually reasonably tidy.
Seven Mile Hut was particularly useful if doing a late
night dash from Christchurch, or if Seven Mile Creek was up, which it often was, and you couldn't get
any further upvalley. Although there are
two Huts on the TL of Seven Mile Creek (the new and the old Dillons huts) it would
have been worthwhile to keep Seven Mile there.
Squid Hut
(Squid Hut: Photo Andrew Buglass 2005)
Squid Hut was built in the late 1950's, the first hut upvalley on the TR
of the Kokatahi River, which had tracks and huts on both sides. After Lands and Survey
took over from NZFS in the mid 80's, the TL of the valley got the maintenance, while
the Squid side languished and overgrew. As time went on, fewer and fewer went up that
way and very information was available about the two huts
there, Squid and Whites. Squid was designated for removal in DOC's 2003/ 4 Review and in
2005 we decided to visit it. The track was extant in a few places, but generally
very overgrown. We needed GPS to find the Hut, even though we were only around 400 mteres
away. Squid was on
a bush terrace above a vertical face that dropped down into the Whakarira Gorge. The floor and
chimney were
rotting out but the upper frame was dry and in good shape. A local possumer had inhabited
the place in the early
90's but there was little sign of recent visitation. The Hut was added to the website
and there was some lively debate about Permolat
taking it on as a maintain-by-community project. DOC were open to the proposal and the group
had decided to go ahead, when Squid burned down. It had been getting a few more visits since
we'd trimmed and
marked the track and someone had probably left the fire going in the shonky fireplace.
Styx Saddle Hut
(Styx Saddle Hut: Photo Glenn Johnston 1976)
Styx Saddle Hut was located on the Browning Pass track on the Arahura side of
Styx Saddle. It would have been a good one to preserve in hindsight, particularly now that
DOC is able to focus on preserving older huts of historic value. I remember stopping in here
on my first real tramp in 1972. Styx Saddle Hut was built pre-WWII, framed with
locally cut and
sawn timber, and clad in corrugated iron. Bunks were of sacking and the beams and studs
were a treasure trove of local history, the names carved or written in charcoal going back to
the 1930's. Stan Graham of "Bad Blood" fame had carved his name
on one of the rafters. The hut was eventually demolished, pre-DOC from memory, and the old
Hut site is still clearly visible next to the bench track heading down from Styx Saddle to
Mudflats Hut.
Top Kokatahi Biv
(Top Kokatahi Biv: Photo Mauricio Lloreda 2006)
Top Kokatahi Biv was located near where the revamped Top Kokatahi Hut now is, at the head of the
Kokatahi valley just under Zit Saddle. Built in the late
1950's it served as a half-way house between Top Kokatahi Hut (then located further down the valley)
and Adventure Biv. Top Kokatahi Biv was not maintained after DOC took over its management from NZFS.
It had slipped off its piles by the mid 80's and became run-down over time. It was removed in 2008 and
simaltaneously replaced by Top Kokatahi Hut. Dave Ogle of the Arahura Valley rescued the Biv
from the Hokitika Dump,
fixed it up and used it as an art installation at a local exhibition.
Whitehorn Spur Biv
(Whitehorn Spur Biv looking over to the Main Divide: Photo Geoff Spearpoint 2004)
Whitehorn Spur Biv was located on a long tussock spur at the Southern end of the Browning Range,
above Crawford Junction in the Kokatahi valley. It was built in the late
1950's and seldom visited, even in its heyday. Access was via a tops track leading up from Crawford Junction,
or the Browning Range from Browning Biv. Whitehorn and the track to it were not maintained
after DOC took over its management from NZFS in the 80's. It was already leaking when I passed through in 1978 and
over the years
the roof caved in, probably due to snow. It was pretty much uninhabitable when removed by DOC in 2006.
I rescued the Biv from the Hokitika Dump and fixed it up. It is now sitting on a property up the Arahura Valley
awaiting its next destination. Now that Mid Styx Hut is being maintained by community and the tops track to the
Browning Range behind it has been opened, there is talk of cutting the Crawford Junction tops track again to
form a circuit. Be nice to put the Biv back if that's the case. What about it DOC?
Wren Creek Hut
(Wren Creek Hut: Photo Ted Smith 1961)
I'm not sure precisely when Wren Creek Hut was built, probably the late 1950's.
It was a 4-bunker with open fire located in the Wren Creek Basin above Cedar Flat in the Toaroha valley. Below the Hut
the Creek is relatively flat for a few hundred metres before plunging down a series of falls and impassible
gorge to emerge just above the Toaroha at the site of the famed Wren Creek hot spring. An old NZFS track went up the ridge
on the TR of the Creek from the bench track between the hot spring and Cedar Flat, all the way
onto Alan Knob. A side track led from a knob in the sub-alpine zone down into the basin. Wren was very seldom
visited even in its heyday, which didn't last long. The Creek went through the Hut in the early 70's, damaging the structure,
and NZFS chose not to repair it. I visited the spot and spent a night there in 1986. The front end of the Hut had collapsed, but the
back end was still intact and the bunks dry. At that stage the track to Alan Knob was still OK, but the side track down into
the basin was very overgrown and dificult to follow. I've heard that the Alan Knob track is still OK and that someone may have
done a bit of work on it. The Hut is likely to be a pile of rusty iron by now. Wren Creek basin is a pretty,
albeit fairly short, narrow, hanging valley. The faces of the Toaraha Range above it look fairly steep and gnarly in most places.