Philip Somerville revisits Big Hut in the Rock and Pillar Range, the closest mountains to Dunedin with a true alpine environment.
It had been a year or four since I slogged up the hill to Big Hut in the Rock and Pillar Range.
Because I committed to write a Summer Times feature about the hut, I thought it sensible one morning to drive just past Middlemarch and hit the trail.
The October morning was warm and sunny and I stopped near Sutton Salt Lake turn-off to put on some sunscreen lotion. Ninety minutes later I was in a blizzard.
How typical. The range is infamous for variable and extreme weather, especially the nor'west and southwest gales that whip across the range. It must be just about the windiest place in windy New Zealand. It can also be really hot; and it can be freezing cold.
Beware, too, the mists that envelop the rolling tops. It is easy to become totally disoriented.
I've had a soft spot for the Rock and Pillars since a midwinter trip in my late teens. We stayed at the other hut, Leaning Lodge, played in the snow and plodded over to Big Hut.
In those days it was in a sorry state. Part of the roof had caved in and snow had piled up inside. But, if memory serves me correctly, a ping pong table stood in the main room.
The hut started life in 1946 as a 70-bunk ski lodge for the Otago Ski Club. With just a little imagination - some of the lockers are preserved - it is easy to imagine the post World War 2 hard work, the parties, the skiing.
But this was the era when Coronet Peak was cranking up, and its attractions proved irresistible.
By 1954, the glory days were over, although between 1958 and 1965 skiers ploughed on with a final fling 2km along the range at the Castle Rock field.
Eventually, to the temporary rescue came the Otago University Tramping Club and then the Otago Tramping and Mountaineering Club.
They did enough to keep the worst of the elements out.
Then, in the early 2000s, outdoor enthusiast Bruce Mason heard talk of Department of Conservation ideas to remove the structure.''
It was like a red rag to a bull,'' Mr Mason said. He and a small group soon set up the Rock and Pillar Trust and, to prove he meant business, Mr Mason began by putting in several thousand dollars of his own money and started work himself.
Strong support came from the Middlemarch community, various companies donated materials and trusts gave grants. About $55,000 and more than 3000 volunteer hours later, the hut was transformed.
Mr Mason, a long-time ''activist'' (he's proud of the word because of the connotations of being ''active'') on public access to the countryside focused his formidable determination to save the ''precious'' historic alpine hut for public use.
Mr Mason, who many an Otago farmer would have been happy to shoot on sight in the 1990s and whose uncompromising approach to public access also upset many of those battling for the same ends, was in his element.
It was some of these same bloody-minded characteristics that enabled him to save and revive Big Hut - a feat few others could have achieved. The hut was immaculate when I stumbled inside. The table tennis table, with plenty of bats and balls neatly at the ready, looked tempting, especially on a bitter day. Shame it's rather hard to play solo.
Folding display boards tell the story of the hut and Rock and Pillar skiing history in pictures, news reports and explanations. Solar-powered lighting (candles are banned for fire safety reasons) is in place and there are plenty of dining tables and seating forms.
There are also instructional signs, some displaying Mr Mason's quirky humour and his no-nonsense attitude. You don't mind the blunt exhortations and the lack of pleases or thank yous because everything is well done and well organised.
Mr Mason has found visitors mostly care for the place and do pay hut fees, at a far higher rate than for Department of Conservation huts, although his experience of hunters has sometimes been poor.
The fees go a way towards supporting continuing maintenance, and wider backing remains crucial. Mr Mason has kept fees as low as possible to fulfil his ethic of enabling widespread public use of the outdoors, and he estimates hut use has grown rapidly towards several hundred people a year.
The next project might be to improve the heating, with ideas for a wood chip burner, a kitchen solar air panel having already been installed.
Mr Mason is up there regularly, from his Matakanui (near Omakau) home, but hopes the trustee base and voluntary help can be spread more widely.
A highlight for him is the ''wonderful experience'' being inside in a raging storm.''
The guy ropes are humming, the wall frames vibrate in harmonies and the wind whistles over the roof.''
A hurricane force gust of 184kmh was recorded on the range last year, and there is a rope to cling to, if necessary, from the door to the toilet.
On my day out, I hiked - with skiffs of hail - across to Leaning Lodge, which has been just rebuilt by a trust, mostly of Otago Tramping and Mountaineering Club stalwarts.
It's modern, functional, smaller, slightly lower in altitude and has panoramic views across the Strath Taieri and beyond. Mr Mason, sensibly, sees the huts as complementary.
While I'll be back to the Rock and Pillars, I can't make up my mind which season I prefer. While each has attractions, I would definitely, however, prefer any blizzards to wait until I was safely ensconced in well-appointed, well-insulated and securely tied down Big Hut.
- Philip Somerville is ODT editorial manager and a keen tramper.
Big Hut
Capacity: 16 without warden, 25 with trust volunteer warden present
Fees: $10 a night (negotiable for groups with warden), $5 under 13.
Routes: Six Mile Creek (from Glencreag Station), 2 to 3 hours walking. Lug Creek, about 4 hours walking (also mountain biking). From Old Dunstan Rd, 3 hours walking (also mountain biking)
Layout: Washroom/entry lobby, Gear room, large common room, kitchen, two bunkrooms (one locked in warden's absence), locked warden's room, outside toilet.
Activities: ''Tramping, mountain biking, rock climbing, cross-country skiing, landscape photography, botanising, table tennis.''
Website: middlemarch.larchgrove.co.nz/bighut/
Altitude: 1325m - highest habitable structure within Dunedin City Council limits.
Mobile phone reception: Mixed along the range. Best Telecom reception at the hut is ''from in the loo or above the kitchen table''.
