Distance: 5.3 km (5.0 DOC hours) - Unmarked route, clear - Moderate-hard terrain
Altitude: 182m to 315m. Gain: 327m. Loss: 194m . Gradient: 6 deg (Moderate)
Skills: - Prolonged rivers (4/6)

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

Primary, mapped (1/5)
Formal route, on maps, 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

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

Prolonged rivers (difficulty: 4/6)
Frequent river travel - impassible after rain, risk of getting trapped

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

Route partially along old roadbed, partially in river

Above Midway the road deteriorates considerably – some parties prefer to take the river all the way from here, though numerous gorges make that tricky too. Heading upstream along the road, we soon pass an old red parks department sign saying ‘track closed’, and climb, sidling the valleyside. A couple of small slips require circumnavigating in this first section. The road sidles in and out of two major creeks, and is also washed out at the crossings of both. But all-in-all the first 3km are ‘doable’.

Then, on a precipitous section of valleyside, we pass a piece of flagging tape and it all turns to custard. The track formerly sidled a cliff-face, but at first half, and then all the track has dropped away. The section is not crossable. Dropping down (where the flagging tape was) leads steeply down to the river, but that is in a slot gorge at this point, and so must be sidled. You can climb back to the road after the dropout and follow it for another 500m to another creek, after which it seems to disappear entirely. Or you can just sidle the creek. Either way, 500m upstream from the dropout, you are going to end up down in the river.

The river starts gorged with pools and narrow chutes of water cut through smooth, slippery rock. Slowly, it opens to a flat bed of rounded, slippery river-rocks and later to coarse shingle. Sections of fern-forest covered flats appear, where you can get out of the creek and walk on dry land. Later still, track marker make an appearance – white squares, red dots, and finally DOC triangles. There’s a track junction, with a turn off climbing to the tops. Tall grass appears – taller than me, and the track vanishes under it. Back into the riverbed – still 1km to go up the grassy flats to the hut.

Finally, Tokenui Hut is reached, set back at the base of the slope on the western side of the valley.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

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