According to Wikipedia, the Silver Peaks is a "largely uninhabited" area "of rough forest and scrub-covered hill country". According to the Department of Conservation, it is "right at Dunedin's back door". And, according to an accumulation of media reports, it is a place where people often get lost on tramping trips. Mark Price goes in search of ways of not becoming one of those lost people this summer.
Here is a word-association quiz to try.
Think of three words to go with "Silver Peaks" and three words to go with "homework".
If your answers are anything like a survey of this office, then your "Silver Peaks" answers include "snow" and "lost" and for "homework", "boring" and "pointless".
But, for Dunedin search and rescue co-ordinator, Police Senior Sergeant Brian Benn, trampers who want to avoid the answers to the "Silver Peaks" question need to get over their answers to the "homework" question.
In other words - if you plan to go tramping in the Silver Peaks, do your homework.
The Otago Daily Times just loves doing homework, so for weeks now has been compiling 16 easy lessons on how to avoid becoming one of the lost tribe of the Silver Peaks.
1. Get a map
If you type "Silver Peaks" into Google and click on maps you will be taken to Nevada, in the United States. But keep looking and you will eventually get to www.linz.govt.nz where you will find the gold standard in maps of New Zealand - the "topo50" series.
The Silver Peaks is on Dunedin map CE17 which can be downloaded, or it can be bought from a shop.
Department of Conservation coastal Otago recreation programme manager Bill Wheeler takes A4 photocopies of the full-size map and laminates them to protect them from the weather and also carries the full-size map in the bottom of his pack, just in case.
He prefers not to rely on maps in tramping guides for navigation or even the map in Doc's own brochure because they lack detail.
"Use topo."
2. Get a compass
If you know where north is, you can work out the other directions as well.
3. Learn how to use a map and compass
Mountain Safety Council bushcraft instructor Sam Beamish believes the two most important skills required in the outdoors are "keen observation and good map-reading skills".
"When you are out in a wilderness area, you are totally dependent on what you can read off the map."
Snr Sgt Benn considers you can learn basic map-reading skills in an hour but it takes much longer to be proficient.
"To look at a map and be able to visualise how big that hill is going to be, how long it's going to take to walk up the top of it and what that ground might be like - that takes experience."
Wheeler: "It's really good to be comfortable with a map and compass before you go in there."
He suggests learning from someone who knows, rather than "just take yourself off to somewhere and try and get lost and then find your way again".
4. Consider a GPS
It might be tempting to think of maps and compasses as rather "old school" and that they can be ditched for a GPS device containing a digital map.
But, no-one, not even the GPS salesman, suggested to the ODT this was a good idea.
Mr Wheeler: "We all use them [GPS] but you need a good one and you need to know how to use it and you need to have a back-up.
"... don't rely on it solely.
In other words, spend the $440 to $757 on the electronic gadget by all means, but don't leave the $9 paper map and the $40 compass at home.
Snr Sgt Benn: "It's a powerful combination to have a map and a GPS and have both of them working for you."
Mr Beamish has seen his GPS affected by tree canopy, cliffs, snow and rain.
"And, if those batteries go flat, you are stuffed."
5. Keep your cellphone dry
Cellphone coverage is patchy in the Silver Peaks and according to Snr Sgt Benn they should not be relied upon.
"Cellphones have their place but obviously there's the battery [issue] again; it's got to be dry, so keeping it in a dry bag is pretty important, and then there are coverage issues."
6. Consider carrying a beacon
Snr Sgt Benn says carrying personal locator beacons is becoming more common.
The latest models that transmit a GPS position in an emergency cost about $300 although they can be hired for between $10 a day and $25 a week at Marine and Motorhome on the corner of Wharf and Kitchener St.
7. Get some practice
Mr Wheeler considers the Silver Peaks is "not a good place" to learn about tramping - "because everyone learns by their mistakes and it's not a good place to make mistakes".
He suggests starting out on other bush tracks around Dunedin - the Mt Cargill, Swampy Summit and Leith Saddle tracks, for instance.
"It will give you an idea of whether you are physically ready for tramping in the Silver Peaks."
8. Build some experience
Mr Wheeler says because the Silver Peaks are so close to town, they can be regarded as a "safe, easy introduction to tramping.
"For many generations of Dunedin people that's absolutely correct.
"But they've gone about it the right way in that they've gone with friends or with organised groups that have taught them the right way to behave in those conditions."
His advice: "Don't go alone, certainly in the first instance.
"Get yourself a buddy who knows what they are doing... or get a professional buddy."
9. Join a club
Wheeler: "Join the tramping club, join the mountaineering club, join the university tramping club or any one of a number of walking groups around Dunedin who actually do go up into the Silver Peaks, and get to know it with them."
Benn: "We find we hardly ever go looking for people who are a member of the club that is related to the activity they are doing.
"We just don't need to because they have had good training... the older ones teach the younger ones. It's a natural progression."
10. Avoid over- and underestimating
Snr Sgt Benn: "You've got to be aware of the least experienced person in your party and the most challenging part of your trip.
"Nowadays there's a bit of a psyche of 'let's just do it', 'let's try things and see what happens' and often you get away with it and sometimes you don't."
Like others spoken to by the ODT, he finds television programmes such as Man vs Wild entertaining but he expects presenter "Bear" Grylls is accompanied by unseen experts and has good backup available.
"I like the concept of being able to think about what's around you and use the resources that you have to the best of your ability."
But, he does not believe even "Bear" Grylls could light a fire in the Silver Peaks in bad weather with nothing but what he could find there.
11. Pick good weather
If you are planning a trip into the Silver Peaks, beware of the rain, wind and "very, very dense fog" which can in from the east.
That is the advice from Rain Effects consultant David Stewart, of Dunedin.
"Any easterly, between a northeasterly and a southeasterly is not a good time to be going up there because it can almost be guaranteed that you are going to get dumped on in a big way."
He suggests checking out the three-day forecasts on the MetService website and picking weather coming from the southwest to northwest.
"Southerlies tend to come and go pretty quick. Easterlies can hang about for two or three days."
Mr Stewart says because of the difference in altitude, rain and a breeze in Dunedin can be snow and a gale in the Silver Peaks.
Snr Sgt Benn says bad weather is one of the main factors in people getting lost.
12. Let someone know where you intend going and when you are likely to be back
Too obvious for words.
13. Stick to the track
Doc has recently upgraded the track from the main Silver Peaks entrance in Mountain Rd to the popular Jubilee hut.
Wheeler: "What we've tried to do is mark the main track and mark it very well and basically said: 'if you are not following an orange marker - that's either an orange sleeve on a warratah or an orange way-mark arrow - then you are not following a marked track and you are on your own."
He says trampers are entitled to go wherever they like but he warns novice trampers to beware of the Silver Peaks tradition of trampers creating their own tracks.
"Some have even been way-marked with little white markers and things like that.
"If it's not marked in orange and it's not marked with either a triangle or a sleeve on a post then you can pretty much assume it is no longer a legitimate track."
Silver Peaks tracks are not formed paths.
Mr Wheeler says there are already plenty of tracks around Dunedin that are wide, gravelled, with steps and handrails but the Silver Peaks is a place for "proper tramping".
"I don't think that going to Jubilee Hut or tramping in the Silver Peaks should be too easy.
"If it's too easy, it simply makes it more attractive to people who haven't quite got themselves in the right physical or mental state to go and tackle it."
Snr Sgt Benn: "[Doc's] idea of having one, very well-marked, easily accessible track sounds pretty good to me.
"If you go off that track, you need to know you better have a good map, a good compass and hopefully someone who's been there before."
14. Avoid the dark
Aside from bad weather, Snr Sgt Benn says running out of daylight is the other main factor in people getting lost.
"Those two factors start to compound a whole bunch of other little things that have gone wrong for them.
"As soon as it gets dark and the weather craps out all those things become big, big problems."
Antony Hamel wrote the Silver Peaks guide book.
He says he is always conscious of the time when in the Silver Peaks - particularly on day trips.
"If you have walked for four hours and you aren't halfway through the trip, for God's sake turn round."
And, he says, while it is possible to travel 4km in an hour on a track, battling through bush can reduce your speed to less than 1km in an hour.
"People go out for a day walk and they can underestimate it."
And, in case you do run out of time, he says, take a torch.
15. Avoid the scrub
Hamel describes the Silver Peaks as "complex".
"I've slowly got to know it but it is extremely complicated."
The added complication is that what was once open tussock land has been reclaimed by scrub.
Very few of the [tracks] now are actually on open ridges so that's caused the issue with people getting in there and thinking 'where am I?'."
"You must always keep to the top of the ridges. If you get off the top of the ridges you get into tiger country."
Snr Sgt Benn notes, however, the ridges can be very exposed.
"That's where you are going to have your more arctic conditions.
"You won't find much shelter on top of those ridges so it's good advice for getting from 'a' to 'b' but may not be for surviving."
Mr Wheeler, too, acknowledges the challenge of manuka scrub.
"It's above head-height... it's very easy to get disoriented and wet and cold and miserable and lose the plot."
He describes the Silver Peaks as "just a really big bit of country to get your head around.
"It's not like you can easily stand on a hill in the middle and say 'oh yeah, I want to head that way', and off you trot.
"You are up and down, up and down, in and out of the scrub and it can be very disorientating.
"The problem with it is that people underestimate it."
16. Don't go
Hamel: "Have coffee and just talk about it... it's called virtual tramping."
Benn: "I don't want to be telling people to stay at home and watch telly.
"There's a huge amount of great learning you can only get in the great outdoors and I think people need the ability to take a risk as well. That's where you learn risk management.
"So, you do need the opportunity in your life somewhere to take the risk but it's got to be a calculated risk."
Last but by no means least ...
The "devil's staircase" is the last stage of the 9km walking track through the Silver Peaks from Mountain Rd to Jubilee Hut.
It drops steadily down a ridgeline for about a kilometre or so and is a place that separates the good knees from the bad.
At the top there are magnificent rock formations, views to Mosgiel, tussocks and cold winds.
At the bottom there is a small stream, beech forest, a sheltered tent site and Jubilee Hut.
While nowhere in between does it feel as if you are just one wrong move away from an unfortunate exit from a precipice, it is reassuring to have low scrub for handholds.
Dunedin search and rescue co-ordinator Police Senior Sergeant Brian Benn always treads carefully when sending search parties in to rescue people who have come to grief on the "devil's staircase".
"I would pretty much need a very, very high search urgency before I would put my search people on the 'devil's staircase' at night.
"We'll stand up the top and blow our whistles, we'll shine our torches, we'll hover over them with the helicopter but in my risk management, putting people down the 'devil's staircase' at night is a challenging thing.
"We can do it but I'm very selective who I ask to do it ... and there's got to be a really good reason."
Snr Sgt Benn says there are many "devil's staircases" around the country but the one in the Silver Peaks lives up to its reputation.
"It's slippery, it's a goat track, it's narrow, it's rocky, it's that horrible clay that when it gets wet you are going to end up on your arse.
"It's a nasty little steep short piece of track that's not well-formed."
Snr Sgt Benn says trampers can find themselves looking down at the "devil's staircase" at the end of a day's tramping when the weather's bad and the light is fading.
"All those risk factors come together on that little trip down the "devil's staircase" when you are within just the last two kilometres of your intended destination.
"That's when things can go wrong."
The rest of the track from Mountain Rd to the hut is quite straightforward and the deep ruts created by thousands of tramping boots show it is well-used.
At one point about an hour from Mountain Rd, at Green Hill, trampers will encounter a sign that advises only "experienced" trampers should continue on.
Bill Wheeler, from Doc, says an experienced tramper is someone who:
• knows their own limits and is willing to adapt to changing conditions
• has a map, a compass and a GPS
• has the navigation skills
• understands the weather
• knows what to do if things go wrong
• plans for the worst and hopes for the best
• has the right clothing
• has the right footwear
• has the right equipment
• has first-aid knowledge
• has planned and researched their trip
• has found the right companions
• has let someone know where they are going
"Your experienced tramper is somebody whose head is in the right place as well as having all the right things in their backpack."
Snr Sgt Benn believes developing experience is best done through a club.
"Hopefully you get a little bit smarter every day and every outdoor experience you have teaches you something new.''
