Routes
Huts / campsites
Roadends
Summits
Passes / crossings
Scenic features
Junctions
DOC Land
Altitude: 434m to 720m. Gain: 128m. Loss: 310m . Gradient: 8 deg (Gentle)
Skills: - Streams (2/6)
The track climbs south from the northern roadend for a few hundred yards to a saddle, steep and slippery on the bare mud surface. A track branches west, signposted Don Juan. Ahead, the track to Lawrence roadend plummets into the valley head beyond. At first still a roadbed, steeply descending, soon deteriorating to a slippery trail, zigzagging down the slope, benched only by the passing of feet. On reaching the valley floor it sidles the steep and crumbling valleyside, still steep, still slippery. Finally it reaches a large slip and vanishes, the tramper left to scramble down the remaining 10 yards to the streambed and continue there. Most of the next 1km is spent in the river, Then, increasingly, sections of track start to reappear on the river banks. The valleysides become gentler, the valley floor widens beyond the width of the stream. Suddenly the ferns, creepers and cabbage trees end, a dry monoculture of manuka taking their place. The track begins again: a 2m wide cut swathe through the bush, benched in places. A Kaweka norm returns.
We follow the eastern valleyside to a fork where the river swings west, cross a sidestream, and climb briefly to reach the saddle where a signposted junction marks a track heading west towards the Donald River and Mackintosh Hut.