Distance: 8.9 km (3.0 DOC hours) - Benched track - Easy terrain
Altitude: 128m to 551m. Gain: 941m. Loss: 531m . Gradient: 10 deg (Gentle)
Skills:

Benched track (3/9)
Benched, maintained, marked tramping track or pack-track

Primary, mapped (1/5)
Formal route, on maps, principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Gentle (difficulty: 2/5)
Gentle slopes

Easy (difficulty: 1/5)
Grass / prepared surface

None (difficulty: 1/7)
No alpine skills required

None (difficulty: 1/6)
No unbridged river crossings

None (difficulty: 1/7)
No alpine skills required

Pakihi Track is the easternmost of the Urutawa roads, and the best maintained. Once a 6’ platformed pack track cut into the valleyside – surveyed and engineered on a constant gradient, sidling in an out of sidecreeks as it drops to the Pakihi River. The track was allowed to fall into disrepair, to the extent that the first time I walked it a warning sign at the start warned of frequent slips and dropouts, advising that it was for experienced trampers only. All that has changed with the coming of John Key’s cycleway. The track has been recut using dingos and is again a platformed roadway, fresh new timber bridges across each creek.

The fact that it takes 9km to cover 4km of ground from Pakihi Hut to the Motu Road, due to all that winding in and out of valleysides, is the price you pay for a flat track.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

Pakihi Track to Pakihi Hut (2hrs, 8km, benched track)

Pakihi Track is the easternmost of the Urutawa roads, and the best maintained. Once a 6’ platformed pack track cut into the valleyside – surveyed and engineered on a constant gradient, sidling in an out of sidecreeks as it drops to the Pakihi River. The track was allowed to fall into disrepair, to the extent that the first time I walked it a warning sign at the start warned of frequent slips and dropouts, advising that it was for experienced trampers only. All that has changed with the coming of John Key’s cycleway. The track has been recut using dingos and is again a platformed roadway, fresh new timber bridges across each creek.

The fact that it takes 9km to cover 4km of ground due to all that winding in and out of valleysides is the price you pay for a flat track.

The track actually bypasses Pakihi on the uphill side and it’s necessary to turn off and drop to the hut – unsignposted on my visit, but the only sidetrack you pass.