Distance: 4.8 km (2.5 DOC hours) - Tramping track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 1208m to 1603m. Gain: 431m. Loss: 278m . Gradient: 8 deg (Moderate)
Skills: Alpine weather (2/7) Winter - Iceaxe/crampons (4/7)

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

Alpine weather (difficulty: 2/7)
Tramp on open tops, exposed to alpine weather

None (difficulty: 1/6)
No unbridged river crossings

Iceaxe/crampons (difficulty: 4/7)
Ice axe and crampons required in winter

Heading south (uphill) from Venison Tops / Tira for 100m or so leads you to a signposted junction for Rocks Ahead (south) or the main Kaweka Range (east). Heading east, the track drops steeply to a beech-covered saddle, where it idles flat for a couple of kilometers before commencing its steady climb to Ballard. The 400m climb is continuous but good, the 1.5m wide cut track following the ridgeline as it weaves its way upwards towards the main Kaweka tops. Things become steeper and stonier once the bushedge is passed, and we climb through red clay-pan hollows in a landscape painted orange, yellow, grey by the sub-alpine plants and lichens of the Kawekas. Climbing further, the clay-pan is slowly superseded by bare fine stones, the colours of the sub-alpines by a diminishing scattering of grey-gold tussock. Until finally, nothing remains but bare rock and scree.

A large cairn on the summit marks the turnoff to Ballard Hut, accompanied by a standard steel-plate Kaweka signpost.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

From the cairn / signpost at the Ballard Hut junction, the poled route to Venison Tops drops steadily east through a landscape of bare rock and stone. Soon the rock gives way to clay pan and small alpine plants, and slowly a Kaweka palette of striking orange, yellow and grey plants and lichens establish themselves over the red-oxide soil.

The gradient steepens and we drop north off the narrow spur into the bush below, aiming for a saddle on the ridgeline. Once in the bush the track is broad, marked and well cut. The track idles more-or-less flat in a westerly direction for a couple of kilometers before a final kilometer-long climb is reached, rising 300m to Venison Top and emerging back into stony tussock. A signpost marks the track junction on the ridgeline, and the hut is 100m to the north on the bushedge.