by wayno » Sun 24 Nov, 2013 5:28 pm
i think howden hut is a pain.. if you're going to stay there delay your departure from mackenzie or find a quiet place up on key summit if the weather is ok,, lots of people stop outside howden during the day. and its only a couple of hours from mackenzie hut to get there, the track is being continutally upgraded to a metalled footpath, so the track times are becoming worthless, if you have much fitness at all its easy to meet or cut the times a fair bit... its a two hour stroll from howden to mckellar hut, but good luck, in summer the hut is overrun with people. they've doubled the size but i'm not certain it will be big enough still to cope with all the people,. they used to sleep all over the floor and under the hut.. and now they've turned the track to the caples into a footpath, i wouldnt hold out much hope of space at caples hut, remember you don't have to book the huts once you're off the routeburn, first in first serve... i prefer to just go and walk the routeburn both ways to extend the walk, and enjoy the scenery twice over and double your chances of seeing the track in decent weather, because you can get bad weather through there throughout summer, anti cyclones over aus drag in fronts from the south west that obliterate visibility... i've seen them come through consistently every other day in summer.
all the huts in that area that don't need booking get hammered over summer. the hollyford is pretty bad and the rees dart which is getting a booking system either this summer or the next... and remember theres no cookers in the greenstone and caples huts..
hopefully the weather isnt too bad, the huts get rather cozy with 50 people jammed in them... in good weather people spread themselves out nicely and its a pleasant stay.... be generous if bevan the hut warden at mackenzie ask for a donation to trap predators, he has almost single handedly turned around a very low bird population on the hollyford side of the routeburn tracks,
in five years i've seen a big difference in the bird life, like you can actually hear them on a lot of the track in the bush now where before you heard nothing and you can actually see birds especially at lake mackenzie, and that has happend because of donations from trampers so bevan can buy more traps... stoats are extremely nasty, they are killing and breeding machines.. they don't wait for hunger they just kill anything they can, all they do is sleep breed and run around looking for food (birds and birds eggs).
the only good stoat is a dead one.
key summit is well worth a visit if the visibility is good.
book early because the huts fill up fast now.
from the land of the long white clouds...