Distance: 8.5 km (9.0 DOC hours) - Unmarked route, hard - Moderate-hard terrain
Altitude: 894m to 1180m. Gain: 847m. Loss: 921m . Gradient: 12 deg (Moderate)
Skills: Occasional scrambles (3/7) - Occasional rivers (3/6) Winter - Snow/ice underfoot, avalanche risk (3/7)

Unmarked route, hard (8/9)
Unmarked route, no clear geographic features to follow

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-hard (difficulty: 4/5)
Tall, walkable scrub / large rocks, occasional waterfalls or gorges in rivers

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

Occasional rivers (difficulty: 3/6)
Occasional rivers - impassible after heavy rain

Snow/ice underfoot, avalanche risk (difficulty: 3/7)
Snow/ice likely on track, tramp crosses avalance paths

From Cameron Hut good flats lead upstream for 150m and end at a gorge. Travel is possible in the riverbed (knee-thigh deep in normal flows) and sidling the southern valleyside (steep and bluffed) for 400m to the 1st big sidecreek from the south after which the valley floor becomes impassable with falls & slot gorge.

My route was as follows (other may exist and be better):

Climb the spur on the southern valleyside below the forks in good beech. Drop into the sidecreek through thick scrub just below tall 40m(ish) falls, but above the tumbling boulder section of the creek. Climb the far side onto moderate-sloping faces of beech+undergrowth above the main river. Sidle above the main river until you find a spot to drop back to the main river (a gut just before major bluffs blocking progress on the southern valleyside provided a route down).

Once in the creek a further 500m of scrambling up river rocks follows - ok going - to where the valley opens out into broad flats at the head of the gorge. Wonderful! This gorge section took me 3 hours (6 DOC hours) and is hard going.

Follow good tussock flats upriver - I took the east bank. After the forks at 1km, the creek enters a V gorge, but good tussock terraces exist on the eastern valleyside. Follow these upriver, where good cattle-tracks connect the clearings through sections of low scrub.

The pass into High Burn is only 60m above the valleyfloor and is easily ascended, though scrubby in places.,

To descend, pick out the wire fenceline fencing off bluffs on the southgern side of the saddle. A track follows this fenceline, cutting round bluffs and dropping down a grassy gut to a patch of beech below. Drop through the northern side of the beech to the main valley floor.

The valley is farmed and cattle may be present. Follow the river 2.5km downstream passing grassy flats followed by a short section of low gorge, with scrubby terraces above. The remains of Upper Burn Hut are on the edge of beech forest on the northern valleyside below the scrubby gorge.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

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