The network of 10 hikes - including the mighty Milford Track - form the centrepiece of the country's world-class tramping.
Found in some of the country's most remote areas, the Great Walks often contend with damaging weather.
However, the increased ferocity and number of storms has experienced guides questioning the impact of climate change on the beloved tracks.
"I've seen lots of coastal erosion, track rerouting and huts taken out. It's always been happening, but it's now increasing," said Jenni Kingston, who first walked the Heaphy Track in 1987 and has guided for 15 years.
"It must be more than a coincidence that these major events are happening more regularly."
The 78km Heaphy Track in the Kahurangi National Park, usually travelled over four days, is less frequently visited by international tourists who instead opt for Fiordland's Milford, Kepler and Routeburn Tracks.
Visitors are treated to varied lush forests and - if they're lucky - treasured birdlife: takahe by day, and kiwi at night.
However, the Heaphy may be unnavigable this season, after a major storm in February destroyed a bridge, leaving doubts on whether the Department of Conservation can rebuild it for summer.
"I was quite surprised when DOC closed the track that weekend. In hindsight a very good decision," Ms Kingston said.
"It was very costly to build and they can't just rebuild it where it was because we know it wasn't good enough."
A workaround has been found this season for "glampers" willing to pay for it: a helicopter transfer over the ravine.
Elsewhere on the South Island, major flooding last month caused damage, closing sections of the Abel Tasman and Queen Charlotte tracks.
The Paparoa Track was largely unscathed by the August storms, but a slip on the access road means cars can't reach an end of the track.
Darryl Wilson, chief executive of multi-generational business Wilsons Abel Tasman, said Kiwi tourism operators were used to the challenges.
"The whole of New Zealand's been eroding since day one, coming out of the seabed, so we can't get too uptight. It's a natural phenomenon," he said.
"My father was reflecting on the snow we had in 1958. We haven't seen it since.
"There are always one-off weather events but the frequency is increasing, there's no two ways about that.
"People, communities, businesses have to adapt and harden up ... visitors have to buy themselves a decent raincoat rather than a designer one.
"Given so many people are kayaking the Abel Tasman anyway, they might get a value-add, they might have another meter of water to explore."
Doc's visitor risk principal advisor Don Bogie said climate change posed major challenges to maintaining the Great Walks and its broader network of around 960 huts nationwide.
"A section of the Abel Tasman will have problems as the sea level gets high," he told AAP.
"Any time you get a major storm you'll often get damage. Flooding. Erosion, Riverbed degradation. Landslides.
"Most of our Great Walks are already in places that get lots of rain ... it could be that over time that some of them might become too risky to be Great Walks."
That alternative, a downgrading of standards which reduces accessibility but requires less maintenance, is music to the ears of hardcore trampers like Ms Kingston.
"Most Kiwis don't need the Heaphy to be such a grand track," she said.
"I walked it when I was nine years old and I'm now 44. You'd buy a T-shirt at the end at Karamea that said 'I survived the Heaphy Track'."
