Hikers celebrate 50 years of pulling out pine tree pests

HAPPY DAYS: 50 years of effort to destroy wilding pines is celebrated.PHOTO/ SUPPLIED

Thirteen Wanganui Tramping Club members had a great time hunting out rogue pine trees on Mount Ruapehu last week, Royce Johnson says.

It's the 50th year that the club has helped rid Tongariro National Park of wilding Pinus contorta trees. They seed prolifically, and crowd out native vegetation.

Members have been camping on the mountain twice a year to pull out pines since late 1964, but for Mr Johnson it was the first time.

They usually go at weekends. This year the days were changed to Monday and Tuesday, because Conservation Department staff were in an employment dispute and not working outside their paid hours.

The time was suitable for the club's retired members, and the weather was better than that predicted for the two weekend days when rangers were not available.

The group camped in beech forest on the edge of tussock on the eastern slopes of Mount Ruapehu and worked in a series of sweeps just north of the Wahianoa Gorge.

These days the trees there are scattered. Across the two days club members and two young rangers pulled up or sawed off a total of 282 wilding pines.

There were many highlights to the trip, Mr Johnson said: great weather, great views, a great group and great food.

On the Monday night there was a barbecue, with meat supplied by the department. Some of the women had baked cakes and biscuits decorated with pine trees, to celebrate the 50th anniversary trip.

That evening stories were told of previous pine pulling efforts. The longest serving puller, Ridgway Lythgoe, had been on the job since 1978 when he was a Lands and Survey ranger working from Ohakune.

Another club member, David Scoullar, had been coming to pine pulling weekends since the 1980s. His son Guy, also among the group, started going with his father at 8. He could show areas he had cleared 30 years ago.

In those early days the pines grew thick and tall, and chainsaws were needed to clear them. Rotting stumps and branches were evidence of that.

Tools changed over the years - to axes, loppers and secateurs. Mr Scoullar said club members were now each issued with a very effective little saw. He remembered a weekend when a member had to be helicoptered to hospital, and another when someone collapsed from hypothermia.

Getting rid of the pines has been New Zealand's longest running conservation programme, and lots of clubs and volunteers have been involved.

The pines are now sparse, with hundreds of hectares covered in a weekend.

But the job is not over yet. The department spends three weekends a year controlling the trees, and also has them sprayed from helicopters. The Whanganui club is still doing its bit twice a year.