Distance: 4.5 km (3.0 DOC hours) - Unmarked route, clear - Moderate terrain
Altitude: 979m to 1857m. Gain: 124m. Loss: 983m . Gradient: 14 deg (Moderate)
Skills: - Streams (2/6)

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

Primary, unmapped (2/5)
Route not on maps, but is principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Occasional moderate climbs

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Low scrub in open or bush / river rocks

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

Streams (difficulty: 2/6)
Small streams, danger only in extreme weather

Unknown (difficulty: 0/7)
Not specified

Descend from the pass on a sizeable boulder-field to the obvious tarn and continue south straight over the edge (rather than seeking a route down to the east of the tarn). More boulders/scree makes a simple, quick descent to the creek (just 30 min from the tarn).

After reaching the creek, it’s a cairned route (mostly) to the treeline (NZTM 1555288 5317043) and a marked track from there to the St James Walkway, turning left for Ada Pass Hut.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

(@millera wrote): From the footbridge I travelled in a northerly then north-west direction, across a grassy section, towards what seemed dense scrubby and impassable bush, on the true right of the Maruia River. Other trip reports mention a track marked through this with tape, but I couldn’t find one, not two years ago nor on this occasion. However, I found a steep dry river bed, unmarked on the 1:50,000 topo map, and hopped up over the reddish coloured boulders in this. After about 100 metres of steep ascent I had gained about 40 metres elevation, and judged that it was time to head back towards the Maruia river, traversing the slope away from the dry river bed, pushing through fairly dense bush at times, then in more open terrain of tussock, flowering grassy meadows and occasional dense clumps of trees, finally reaching the stream. Continue up the river, negotiating some beech forest, then open scrub and plenty of speargrass.

By 1,130 metres the track steepens significantly, and reaches the waterfalls on the Maruia visible form the Ada Pass Hut. After another hour of steep terrain I had reached the upper parts of the Maruia and was approaching the turnoff to Three Tarn Pass. I was still on the river’s true right, with large bluffs with waterfalls and grassy banks covered in white and yellow flowering daisies on the true left.

Rather than continue up scree to the tarn, I chose to walk up the steep spur to a rather inhospitable basin with a small tarn surrounded by rock. I rounded a very large mound of rock to the main tarn where I found a nice place to set up camp.