Distance: 6.9 km (3.5 DOC hours) - Benched track - Easy terrain
Altitude: 548m to 929m. Gain: 565m. Loss: 452m . Gradient: 8 deg (Moderate-hard)
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

Moderate-hard (difficulty: 4/5)
Continuous moderate climbs

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

The Moerangi MTB track is an old benched track, recently recut and rebenched for mountain bike use. From the Mangamate turnoff, it climbs steadily, sidling the SW face in and out of a number of gullies as it ascends towards Moerangi peak (the straight line up the spur shown on maps is pure fiction). The ascent is quite steep in places.

Finally, gaining the ridgeline, the crosses briefly to the eastern face, before returning to the west for the main body of Moerangi. A clearing at the start of the main peak looks like an old hut site - large trees felled long ago to clear it. But no sign of a hut exists.

The track sidles well below the summit on the western face, continuing to climb steadily as it goes. It finally regains the ridgeline west of the main peak, crosses it, and then starts to sidle down the eastern face. Again, the straight line shown on the map is wrong - the track sidles well up the two sidecreeks south of Moerangi, before finally reaching the valley floor and following them west to the confluence.

Once on the valley floor proper, the benched track crosses the river on a bridge, and sidles low on the eastern valleyside to the confluence with the other half of the Moerangi, which is crossed on a long wooden bridge. The track junction with the Rogers - Moerangi track lies just beyond.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

No description