New Zealand’s backcountry huts are the least American space: you walk for kilometers (never miles), often very uphill, to a drab public house with no trash cans to join a one-night commune with strangers.

Last weekend we hiked to Rangiwahia Hut, in the North Island’s Ruahine Range. You can’t drive up, obviously. It’s all bluntly non-ADA compliant. You leave your muddy boots outside because there’s no raccoons to steal them. Inside there are no premium options, no assigned bunks, no waivers to sign, no potable water, no stoves, and (usually) no electric lights.

Most rules are unwritten. Hang your wet stuff outside. Don’t be too loud. Go to bed by 10:30 or so. Wipe the bench down or get the stinkeye from the Palmy nurses playing cards at the one scarred plywood table.

The hut commune is human and thus flawed: oatmeal floating in the sink, drinkers rowdy past curfew, drop toilets ranging from passable to medieval. (Rangiwahia’s got some nice new ones, with tūī birds painted on the side.)

But there is still a shared, secular zen. At Rangiwahia we lit candles in tin sconces. We traded stories. A hunter with a long gun passed through and I never thought to be afraid. After dinner I stepped outside into the windy sunset and climbed up to the lookout. The little nation spread below. If it wasn’t for the rolling mist I might’ve glimpsed the sea.

Come bedtime my 7yo daughter couldn’t sleep. I was already curled up in my bunk with novel and flashlight so I gave her my notebook and a pencil and sent her out to the table to draw awhile. The nurses passed her a candle and carried on with their game. The wind howled outside but my little girl was watched over by strangers and an open flame, and for one night on a cold mountain I was safe and warm and happy.