Distance: 5.2 km (2.5 DOC hours) - Tramping track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 321m to 790m. Gain: 485m. Loss: 136m . Gradient: 7 deg (Moderate)
Skills:

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

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 Burn Hut track starts by crossing the #2 dam, to a well tended ‘lawn’ on the far side. The track then meanders down the Mangahao valley in tall, mature bush. Sometimes by the river, often climbing and sidling, narrow, slippery. In low flows the riverbed is faster – if you don’t mind wet feet.

We cross another Rangiwahia-style arching bridge, and reach the start of the climb. As with the Ruahines, the climb starts very steep, real effort required to get up and over the truncated vertical face of the spur. Once on the spur proper, things improve – the track being now merely ‘steep’. 300m of constant gradient follows to where the spur flattens off. Then a descent – hard-won altitude discarded – before another gentle climb to the tops. Vegetation thins to scrub then solid leatherleaf, the hut now visible at the saddle 2km to the south. The track, however, continues east – a wide canyon carved through a sea of leatherleaf. Climbing to pt798, we then finally swing south towards the hut for a long, gradual descent to the saddle.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

From Burn Hut, the track continues north along the leatherleaf tops - well cut (2014) and easy going, if wet underfoot. From the highpoint at pt798 the track starts to drop WNW and finally enters beech forest as the gradient steepens.

A steep, but cut and marked tramping descent follows directly down the spur to the Mangahao River. The track crosses the side-creek upstream on an arching, Rangiwahia-style bridge, then sidles up the valleyside for a further 1.5km to Mangahao No.2 Dam. Cross the dam on the walkway on its top to the far side, where a small carpark marks the roadend.