An uphill battle

August 15, 2009
Mountain bikers have a glittering prize in their sights - the prospect of being allowed back on the Heaphy Track, at least in winter. But any return will not necessarily be an entirely smooth ride. Geoff Collett reports. --------------------
If and when mountain bikes make it back on to the Heaphy Track, at least nobody will be able to complain it's been a rushed decision.
"We're very patient, " says one of the leading lobbyists for the campaign to bring back the bikes, Guy Wynn-Williams of Mountain Bike New Zealand.
Which is just as well. It's more than 13 years since they were officially barred from what the cyclists like to describe as the best multi-day back country ride in New Zealand, and more than 13 years since they began their lobbying to be allowed back there.
They are also certain of the rightness of their cause: "When it's all sorted out, I think everyone will say this is a good thing, " Mr Wynn-Williams predicts.
But they are not there yet, and may not be there in even a year's time, he concedes, even if the prospects appear to be brightening by the week as the Conservation Department launches into formal consultation on a proposal to allow cycling on the Heaphy over winter. This is one part of the mountain biking world where the wheels turn almost imperceptibly slowly.
Before the Kahurangi National Park was created in 1996, the Heaphy was part of the Northwest Nelson Forest Park, open to all users, and revered - and heavily used - by back-country cyclists. While hard and fast figures are not available, Mr Wynn-Williams estimates that about 4000 cyclists rode the track every year - whether its full 80km-plus length from Bainham in Golden Bay to Karamea on the West Coast, or sections of it, revelling both in the quality of the track and its spectacular setting. "The mountain biking equivalent of skiing in champagne powder in Colorado is benched single-track on the West Coast through beech tree matter, " Mr Wynn-Williams says. The Heaphy has heaps of that.
But things changed. With national park status, the whole Kahurangi became off-limits to any kind of "vehicle", including the pedal-powered variety, reflecting the traditional view that this was country that should be appreciated only by those willing to walk.
There was a wider backlash in conservation circles against the rapidly growing ranks of cyclists, who were starting to dominate some popular tracks.
Meanwhile, DOC predicted that with national park status added to the Heaphy's already established reputation as the longest of the country's "great walks", tramper numbers would swell. Given the potential for tensions if trampers found themselves having to compete with cyclists for track and hut space, the prospects for bikes being welcomed back were not good.
But numbers walking the Heaphy have stayed still, at about 4500 a year.
The department's Nelson Marlborough conservator, Neil Clifton, suspects the length of the track and the complicated transport arrangements needed to tackle it have dampened enthusiasm, certainly in comparison with the likes of the Abel Tasman coastal track.
What's more, four out of five people who do walk it are there between November and April. The rest of the year, it can be all but deserted. DOC hut bookings show just nine people were on the track last Sunday night and eight on Monday.
Most importantly for the mountain bike debate, five years ago the New Zealand Conservation Authority - which sits at the top of the conservation bureaucracy - agreed to lift the ban on mountain bikes in national parks, thanks to the lobbying of Mountain Bike New Zealand and an acceptance that mountain bikers were a valid and growing segment of the outdoor recreation sector.
The policy move did not mean wholesale access rights for bikes, though - the cyclists still had to argue their cause on a case-by-case approach, meaning more lobbying of DOC as individual parks' management plans came up for review.
It's that process that's now under way in Nelson for Kahurangi.
The Heaphy is one of three tracks the department is looking to open to cyclists, along with the much-less used Flora Saddle-Barron Flat and Kill Devil tracks. In the Heaphy's case, riding would be limited to May-October. If the thought of taking to the back country in the depths of winter sounds unappealing, Mr Wynn-Williams reasons that the weather is typically more settled then, the nor'west rains yet to arrive and the track is quiet. "It's colder for sure, but in terms of track conditions that's not really a problem."
Mountain Bike New Zealand has been keen to promote the impression of would-be Heaphy Track riders as responsible types who respect the mountain biker's code of etiquette, take care not to damage the track surface or scare walkers, ride sensibly, watch out for the wildlife and enjoy the scenery as much as the technical challenge.
He believes the sport has been able to convince others sharing the outdoors that the cyclists are not as aggressive and inconsiderate as popular mythology might have it.
"When mountain biking was new, there was an understandable fear that if you met a mountain bike on a single track [as in wide enough for one bike], you may get bowled over and injured and all that sort of stuff, " Mr Wynn-Williams says. But he cites a "wonderful piece of research" among people walking the Marlborough Sounds' Queen Charlotte Track, which has long been shared with mountain bikes. Before walkers started their trip, there was a "modest level of apprehension about meeting mountain bikes", he says. But at the end of the trip, something like 70 per cent of hikers said that meeting cyclists along the way "had actually enhanced the experience".
Mountain Biking New Zealand has been building bridges with other outdoors groups, particularly tramping clubs. Mr Wynn-Williams claims widespread support among tramping clubs for Mountain Bike New Zealand's bid to be granted winter-riding access on the Heaphy, even if debate in the Nelson region has highlighted a large rump of individual trampers who remain deeply opposed.
Federated Mountain Clubs national president Rob Mitchell is more guarded in his assessment of that support: it comes with the expectation that DOC will be able to manage potential conflicts, and deal with them if they do arise. "It hasn't been contentious, but it could become contentious, " is his assessment of the feeling within mountain clubs toward the Heaphy proposal.
"You just don't know until you test these sort of things out. If there are grounds for conflict then they need to be addressed."
Mr Mitchell says that DOC has to cater for a wide range of interest groups, and points out that many trampers - himself included - are keen mountainbikers, too. But he points to the lengthy history of national parks, as places to be enjoyed on foot, "and all of a sudden you've got potentially a very significant change in recreation use".
"I think it's unreasonable to expect major changes in a short time - they have to be gradually phased in."
And whatever the soothing messages from Mountain Bike New Zealand, he can understand some trampers' anxiety about being unexpectedly confronted with a fast-moving bike on a narrow, steep section of back country track. "The importance has got to be public safety, doesn't it?"
If trampers are prepared to give the cyclists a go, the environmental lobby, as represented by Forest and Bird, is firmly opposed, even if it is in the minority. Its top of the south regional field officer, Debs Martin, says environmental values surrounding the Heaphy and Flora tracks are too precious and sensitive to risk.
Endangered great spotted kiwi and blue duck call the area home and could potentially have traumatic encounters with cyclists, Ms Martin says. But she says the biggest risk is to the populations of powelliphanta snails scattered throughout the Kahurangi. They are a common sight, slithering along the tracks after rain, Ms Martin says. The unhappy consequences of a fast-moving cyclist coming across a slow- moving snail hidden among leaf litter don't require much imagination.
Despite DOC's promises of careful monitoring - and a view that most snail activity is around dawn and dusk, meaning a ban on night-time cycling should avoid bike-snail conflict - Ms Martin is adamant that the risk remains too high to justify. "How do you monitor how many snails might be run over by a mountain bike? If you're a mountain biker and you've just run over a snail, you'd just pick the snail up and biff it off the track, wouldn't you? You're going to remove any evidence that you've done harm."
Mr Wynn-Williams and DOC both say that they would want the Heaphy to be approached as a multi-day (one or two-night) ride, rather than bikers pushing themselves to do it in a day, and certainly not being dropped off by helicopter at the high points to give them a thrill-seeking downhill run back to the coast.
Yet everyone also knows mountain bikes have been an occasional sight on the track over the past 13 years as cyclists sneak through; Mr Wynn- Williams says he has tackled the track in a day; and Ms Martin says that as recently as April, Forest and Bird members reported cyclists who had been choppered in for a bit of illicit adventuring.
She recalls, too, meeting some mountain bikers in Golden Bay recently who told her that "national parks are fair game, we'll go in there where and when we feel like it". That attitude doesn't give her much confidence that the cyclists will play by any rules DOC might lay down.
For now, DOC is cautious in its comments. "The last thing I want to do is portray a view that our mind's made up, " says Neil Clifton.
Its standard response to such concerns is, if the trial goes ahead and the rules are broken by cyclists, their access could be removed when the situation is reviewed, probably around 2011, or immediately if the problem is serious.
"We recognise that mountain biking is a legitimate activity on conservation land and we're putting forward a proposal that would try to provide for that activity."
The fact the activity might have an impact is not a reason in itself to then ban the activity - "it just means that we manage for that impact".
Mr Wynn-Williams - who is confident the change will go through - accepts that there will be mountain bikers who let the side down, just as there are trampers who spoil the party for everyone else.
But he thinks the DOC proposal addresses all reasonable concerns.
"The opportunity for someone who is opposing this proposal to make a sound argument is pretty difficult to imagine."
Still, he's not limbering up for an assault on the Heaphy just yet. The wheels continue to grind on. He isn't counting on a decision being made in time for the trial to be under way even next winter. Not that he's panicking. After all, as he says, mountain bikers are patient people. While the Heaphy Track is the glittering prize for Mountain Bike New Zealand in its campaign to open up more of the back country for mountain biking, the cycling group maintains it is not trying to gain wholesale access to the country's national parks and popular walkways.
It has a small handful that it has sought riding rights on - including its first success, the Poulter Valley in Canterbury's Arthur's Pass National Park. The Poulter route became the first national park track to be opened to mountain bikes in December 2007, for a three- year trial. It is a 54-kilometre return trip and despite a steep lead-in section is almost exclusively tackled as a day ride, says Conservation Department management planner Poma Palmer.
The trial there has been straightforward so far. Most of the riding is in summer and the route is popular with walkers as well as cyclists, but Mr Palmer says there have been no reports of conflict between the two groups.
While there have been a couple of specific problems - a short section where bikers have not been sticking to their designated route, for example - Mr Palmer hasn't seen anything that makes him think the cyclists will lose their access at the end of the trial. But he points out that the Poulter is entirely different from the Heaphy in terms of its terrain and general environment.
One thing that has emerged from the trial is that mountain bikers' back-country skills often aren't as advanced as trampers', particularly when it comes to things like river crossings.
If bikes return to the Heaphy, he predicts there will be a need for education and information for bikers about just what sort of environment they are headed for.
"And possibly there will be a need for more search and rescues."