A five-report process to determine a limit on hikers for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing has deferred a decision – again. Nikki Macdonald finds some are elated and others frustrated. But everyone agrees DOC needs better overcrowding management tools.
“The worst hiking experience I have ever had”, wrote Alan in 2018, comparing our most feted day walk to London’s M25 motorway. “There are many great one day hikes in New Zealand – this is not one of them.”
Instagrammer Apui Pui’s more recent photos show queues up steps, queues at a bridge, 40 people clustered at a lookout: “Horrible Sunday foot traffic”.
Way back in 2006, the Tongariro National Park Plan noted “a growing perception” that hiker numbers on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing were “near or have reached carrying capacity”.
That plan promised the Department of Conservation would decide exactly how many people could trek New Zealand’s most famous day walk, while minimising environmental damage and protecting the visitor experience.
Eighteen years later DOC still doesn’t have a definitive answer, after a five-report process decided no cap was needed (yet) and still more work was required to settle on a number.
But one reason given for rejecting a limit is the same problem facing DOC in tourism hotspots nationwide. Why set a limit when you can’t enforce it?
Tackling the TAC problem
The Tongariro Alpine Crossing evolved from a rutted pumice route with fewer than 1000 walkers annually in the mid-1970s, to a popular track for 10,000 annual walkers in 1992/93, to 63,000 trampers 20 years later.
Now the crossing is so popular it has its own website. In the 2018/19 pre-Covid tourism boom 150,000 people ticked off the Kiwi tourism must.
That’s slightly less than the population of Tauranga tramping 20km across the park – the first national park in the world to gain world heritage status for both cultural and natural values.
Its popularity brings four potential problems – congestion destroying the experience; crowds overwhelming toilets (and then littering the landscape with fetid white blobs); trampling the mana of a maunga (mountain) that’s sacred to local hapu Ngāti Hikairo ki Tongariro; and cost.
During that 2018/19 summer, DOC removed 93,000 litres of human waste – mostly by expensive, carbon-chugging helicopter. And the department is about to spend $1million upgrading the track.
Which is why DOC set out to investigate – with the help of $1.8m from the International Visitor Levy – ways to manage the crossing more sustainably. It commissioned cultural, economic, social and environmental reports, as well as a carrying capacity assessment.
With limits considered of 600, 800, 1000, 1200 or 1500 trampers a day, most expected the process to trigger a cap on walker numbers.
That included the project’s manager, Cher Knights.
“Six months ago, before we started seeing the data come in, that was the position that I had taken – that we were definitely going to need to look at a cap.”
But instead, the reviewers decided a limit wasn’t necessary “in the short-term”. But rather than name a number for when it is needed, they called for still more monitoring.
Depending on who you talk to, that decision was either a thunderbolt of good sense, or exposed the process as a complete waste of time.
What’s a carrying capacity anyway?
The idea that a patch of land or sea can only handle so many feet or bodies isn’t new.
Since 2002, Peru’s famous Inca Trail has been limited to 500 walkers a day, to reduce environmental damage.
Fiordland’s 2007 National Park Management Plan set a daytime limit of 4000 visitors to Milford Sound Piopiotahi, but no-one takes any notice.
In the Ngāti Hikairo cultural impact report, kaumatua Te Ngaehe Wanikau talks of manaakiwhenua – what the land can sustain.
But while walker limits have been discussed for TAC for years, they’ve never been attempted. A trial cap of 1250 trekkers a day suggested in 2017 never eventuated.
Knights says that number would have been too high anyway.
Part of the problem with Tongariro – and to a lesser extent other tourism hotspots such as Milford Sound – is that tourists don’t arrive in a steady stream across the whole summer.
Those horror-show photos of endless ant trails only happen on major holidays and the few days a year where a run of bad weather creates a bottleneck of waiting walkers that intensifies the trail’s natural pinch-points.
The carrying capacity report found that, during summer 2023/24, only 2% of days exceeded 1500 walkers, while one in 10 had more than 1100. The daily season average was less than 600.
So while a limit of 1250-a-day would reduce the 2500-walker congestion days, if the average count rose to that number, the track infrastructure (basically toilets) would be completely overwhelmed.
So unless you slash numbers to 600 or 800 a day (which equates to about 115,000-155,000 a year), you’d need both a daily and annual limit.
So what was the point?
For years, Tongariro River Motel owner Ross Baker has sent guests “anywhere but the crossing”. He’s even made a video of alternatives.
“We’ve got some wonderful walks up in the Kaimanawas, which are just as spectacular and no crowding. People don’t come all this way to stand in a queue.”
While overcrowding has improved in past years, he still thinks walker numbers should be limited. But at what level is more tricky.
“There have been various reports over the years trying to find a solution. I don’t think there is one.”
One of those reports was written by tourism adviser Dave Bamford, who has advocated for better management of TAC for decades, and also contributed to the latest iwi report.
He believes the crossing’s management has come a long way in the past 10 years, with extra toilets, parking restrictions that force walkers to take shuttles that can then stagger start times, and new cultural signage.
“The general feeling is that 1000-1200 a day is manageable, if the car parking issue is managed, if the visitors understand the cultural impacts better, and the concessionaires are spreading the load.”
DOC also introduced a voluntary booking system last year, so they can send safety alerts and information.
But often management strategies create more issues, says Colin Baker, of Ruapehu Scenic Shuttles. Backpackers now drop their group at the track start, so only one person then parks the car at the other end and catches a shuttle.
Given the only money DOC gets from walkers is a $4.10 shuttle fee and $3 community contribution fee levied via tourism operators, that means both businesses and DOC lose out.
“You’ve basically got a 5-to-1 drop-off rate with the backpackers…As a shuttle operator, that’s not sustainable.”
The booking system also adds extra paperwork, as businesses are supposed to ensure their customers have booked with DOC, Baker says.
“Why should we enforce that for them?…Every time they come up with a solution, it creates another problem.”
While Baker thought a daily limit of 600 or 800 was “bloody stupid”, he’s surprised no cap is being introduced.
“As it stands, they’ve achieved nothing…At the moment it’s running fine, but it’s a classic example of: It isn’t a problem yet, and then when it becomes a problem it’s like, oh s…, it’s too late to do anything about it.”
But Stewart Barclay, of guiding company Adrift Tongariro, reckons the carrying capacity assessment achieved exactly what he hoped it would – reason rather than sentiment.
“It’s got a lot of emotions attached to it, depending on whether you want nobody up there, or whether you want to see it as the ultimate commercial cash cow, and somewhere in between is the balancing act.”
The idea of TAC as an isolated wilderness walk disappeared 25 years ago (except in winter when you need technical skills) so what matters more now is managing facilities, rather than managing congestion, Barclay says.
“What is the number that the mountain infrastructure can sustain? And that number’s still not there, because it depends on the toileting.”
While it’s not DOC’s job to manage conservation land to make people money, the department also commissioned an economic impact report.
That found that a 600-walker daily limit could cost the region $9.8-$12.3m – a big whack for a small economy struggling with a cost of living crisis, failing skifield and mill closure.
“Everybody’s struggling to earn a decent crust,” Barclay says. “The only gem in that is the Tongariro Crossing.”
Instead of limiting access, DOC should be “promoting the heck out of it”, he says.
Why bother setting a limit if you can’t enforce it?
The carrying capacity review authors, consultancy Third Bearing, recommended DOC consider annual limits when hiker numbers return to 155,000 (expected by 2026). Or 200,000 if extra interventions are introduced.
Peak-time daily limits should be considered when more than five days in a season exceed 2000 walkers, and the rolling 5-day average hits 1500.
But one of the reasons the authors give for failing to set a limit is because “it is unclear how it would be enforced”.
Knights thinks a cap will eventually be needed, and in an ideal world, that would be managed by a compulsory booking system, with a fee ensuring all hikers contribute. That’s how DOC manages its huts and campsites.
But as the law stands, the department can’t charge for access to conservation land. Which means roughly one in four walkers pays nothing.
That also leaves DOC with only convoluted options to limit numbers – gently suggesting people reschedule when booking an already-busy day, restricting the numbers shuttle and guiding businesses can take.
Everyone seems to agree that TAC walkers should pay, and that the best way to do that is change the law to control access.
Bamford – who is also on the board of tourism transformation scheme Milford Opportunities Project – has long supported allowing access charges.
“We need to change the legislation. And I think it’s inevitable that it will happen sometime. And the sooner, the better.”
Colin Baker agrees.
“The longer they drag their feet on this, the longer it will take to get it legislated.”
Barclay wants to axe the “bottom-dwelling”, crap-anywhere, month in New Zealand in under $1000 tourism.
“Putting a quality product out there, and charging for it, is where I think New Zealand should be.”
So what now?
Knights doesn’t think the project has been a waste of time.
Capping numbers was only one management option. They’re also installing a new climate station on the maunga to better forecast weather, and imposing new concession conditions so shuttle operators can’t drop passengers off in terrible conditions.
The $3 community contribution fee is funding manaaki rangers to add cultural context, depreciation and maintenance of the new cultural installations and some money towards track maintenance.
DOC has also put counters on the toilets to better judge when they need emptying, and is considering dewatering loos that reduce waste volumes.
The department will also monitor numbers to decide – again – if and when a limit is needed, Knights says.
“I think as tourism comes back in New Zealand, we are going to need to put a cap in there at some point.”
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