Distance: 3.6 km (6.0 DOC hours) - Unmarked route, clear - Moderate terrain
Altitude: 407m to 1295m. Gain: 49m. Loss: 935m . Gradient: 16 deg (Moderate)
Skills: Occasional scrambles (3/7) - Streams (2/6)

Unmarked route, clear (7/9)
Unmarked route, follows obvious geography (river, spur, trail, etc)

Primary, unmapped (2/5)
Route not on maps, but is principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Occasional moderate climbs

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Low scrub in open or bush / river rocks

Occasional scrambles (difficulty: 3/7)
Tramp with some scrambles and exposure to falls

Streams (difficulty: 2/6)
Small streams, danger only in extreme weather

Unknown (difficulty: 0/7)
Not specified

No description

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

Follow the marked DOC track/route up the true right side of Falls Creek from the Christie Falls bridge on the Milford Sound road. The rough track climbs steeply above the series of waterfalls at first but is well marked and cut, later veering away from the main creek and following a side-creek up the valleyside before sidling - beyond which track cutting seems to have ceased and the track become very overgrown. The track/route crosses two smaller scrubby side creeks before dropping to the river where a third broad rock & shingle creek bed descends from the SE.

Leave the track (which the map shows crossing the river to the northern bank at this point) and climb the spur to the south of the side-creek as far as the bushedge. There is no scrub-layer and the spur leads straight out onto tussock faces. Make a sidling climb SW to the Melita Saddle at pt1309, keeping above the heads of various steep slipped-out creekheads.

2-4hrs road to saddle