It is also holding its own with the famous and established Routeburn "Great Walk", in Otago and Fiordland.
The Paparoa Track was created in partnership between Doc, Ngati Waewae and the families of the 29 men who died in the 2010 Pike River mine disaster. The Pike families wanted to create social and economic benefits for the West Coast.
A Doc report has assessed the first two years of visitor use of the track, from March 2020 to February 2022.
Doc western South Island director operations Mark Davies said it was one of the higher-performing Great Walks, comparable with the Kepler and Routeburn.
"When we did the track feasibility study in 2015 we set an optimistic target of 2500 hut bed nights for the first year of operation.
"We far exceeded that with 4720 bed nights in 2020-21 and 6620 in 2021-22," he said.
The track opened shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic forced border closures.
"Despite the pandemic it was a top-performing Great Walk during 2021-22 as many New Zealanders wanted to check out the country’s newest great walk; 93% of visitors reported being very or extremely satisfied with their experience," he said.
The report showed between 22% and 26% of those using the dual-use track were mountainbikers. An estimated 1000 per year are either riding right through in one day or doing day trips from the Blackball end.
There are also plenty of mountainbikers coming in for the day at the Punakaiki end of the track, via the Waikori Rd access, as well as day walkers coming through the Pororari River Track entrance.
Ninety percent of track users said they had no issues with it being a shared track.
Direct spend in the surrounding area from Paparoa Track overnight visitors is estimated to be about $3.38million.
Responses show 11 permanent full-time-equivalent jobs and 16 full-time-equivalent seasonal jobs have been created in the community following the track opening.
"Interestingly, the Paparoa Track is attracting an older age profile with 50 to 55% of visitors in the 50 to 69-year age bracket compared with a median age of 31 on the Great Walks generally," Mr Davies said.
"Most domestic track users are currently coming from Canterbury, Wellington, Nelson-Tasman, Auckland and Otago.
"We’re expecting international visitor numbers to rise to 24 to 38% of walkers and 16% of bikers in future."
However, it had not all been plain sailing, he said.
As well as Covid, there had been closures from road works and the weather. There were also higher maintenance costs.
The side Pike 29 Memorial Track was due to open this summer.
"Because of that we’re unlikely to make any big decisions on hut extensions or provision of camping sites until after June 2025." — Greymouth Star
