Lonely Lake Hut Upgrades

Lonely Lake Hut is part of the classic Dragons Teeth trip in northern Kahurangi National Park. This small four bunk hut was built by the Golden Bay Alpine & Tramping Club in 1973.

​In late January 2016, Gaylene Wilkinson, Geoff Spearpoint, and Alex Tuffnell spent three days preparing and painting the hut exterior. They also cleared existing drainage around the hut, and lifted and relaid the rock cobbles at the entrance to the hut.

Three months later in mid-April 2016, Gaylene headed in once again, this time with Peter Fullerton, the two of them flying in with 550kg of gear and materials, to begin the main upgrade work on the hut. This involved stripping the interior of the hut back to the framing, at which point extra framing timber was added to strengthen the hut. The hut was then insulated and a new window installed on the west wall, along with a new larger skylight in the roof. ​

Also on the list of upgrades to the hut, a new stainless steel bench and a couple of new shelves were added, a book shelf was built into the wall beneath the new window, the bottom bunks were lowered to allow for more headroom and all bunks were widened. A new hinged bunk was constructed to cleverly take the capacity from three to four bunks. Completing the renovation, the hut was painted and a new awning over  the door built to provide some extra shelter.

In early May 2016, Peter and his son Andrew Fullerton, walked in to complete a long day of finishing work on these upgrades. 
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All up, the renovation took approximately 350 hours of hard work by these volunteers to enhance the cute, cosy Lonely Lake Hut. The local Golden Bay outdoors people who contributed to the project would like to thank the assistance and contributions of Resene Paints, Coldstore Nelson, Placemakers, Waitapu Engineering, and DoC Takaka.