Distance: 4.1 km (1.5 DOC hours) - Road - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 642m to 855m. Gain: 79m. Loss: 246m . Gradient: 5 deg (Gentle)
Skills:

Road (1/9)
Formed road, 4WD track, etc

Primary, mapped (1/5)
Formal route, on maps, principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Gentle (difficulty: 2/5)
Gentle slopes

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

A predator-proof fence has been built along the ridgeline from Jenkins Hill to Third House, and as such this is no longer a pleasant tramping track, but a bulldozed scar along the ridgeline.

Heading east from the signpost, follow the fenceline. A couple of places you get teh option of steep direct descents along the fence, or zigzags on the construction track. It does not matter which you choose, they go the same place.

100m before Thirst House, a small corflute handwritten sign stapled to a log marks the turnoff to the hut. Not obvious, though there is a small orange triangle too. A pleasant tramping track runs the remaining 100m to exit in a large clearing containing the hut.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

From Third House, take the pleasant tramping track SW along the ridgeline. After 100m this exits onto a newly bulldozed scar containing the predator-proof fence. Follow the fenceline track SW for the remaining 4km to the signposted junction with Barnicoat Ridge track, 500m SE of Jenkins Hill. In two locations the construction track cuts off the fenceline to zigzag steep sections, but rejoins the fenceline soon after.