Distance: 4.9 km (2.0 DOC hours) - Tramping track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 375m to 694m. Gain: 612m. Loss: 788m . Gradient: 17 deg (Moderate)
Skills: - Streams (2/6)

Tramping track (4/9)
Cut, marked tramping track: natural, rough ground surface

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

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Occasional moderate climbs

Easy-moderate (difficulty: 2/5)
Tussock / river-gravel / open bush / cut track

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

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

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

The track from to Mitre Flats to Baldy Saddle is tedious and painful. All the worst features of a Tararua sidle track it climbs and falls repeatedly.

Head downriver from Mitre Flats, remaining on the western bank. Sth Mitre Creek is crossed on a bridge, then the track begins to climb the valleyside. The next 3km are a series of climbs and falls - for no obvious reason. 400m before Baldy Saddle the track drops into a scoured out creek bed. This frequently floods and the track is normally obliterated. A scramble is required to cross it, and some care is necessary to pick up the track starting again just upstream on the opposite side.

From here the track climbs once more to reach Baldy Saddle. The junction is in a different location to that marked on the map, a signpost here marks the junction with the Baldy Track, climbing NE to the tops.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

The track from Baldy Saddle to Mitre Flats is tedious and painful. All the worst features of a Tararua sidle track it climbs and falls repeatedly.

Firstly it drops from the saddle into the scoured-out creek below. The track is frequently obliterated through this valley by floods, and care is required to locate the track climbing again on the far side, just downriver. The creek must be crossed and is a trickle in normal flows, but floods in extreme rainfall.

From here you are back in stable bush, but several more ascents and descent round sidecreeks, bluffs and slips are required before the track finally drops to the Sth Mitre Stream confluence. The creek is bridges, and Mitre Flats Hut lies another 100m up the main valley.