Distance: 7.0 km (3.5 DOC hours) - Tramping track - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 1285m to 1443m. Gain: 348m. Loss: 331m . Gradient: 6 deg (Moderate)
Skills: Alpine weather (2/7) Winter - Snow/ice underfoot (2/7)

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

Snow/ice underfoot (difficulty: 2/7)
Snow/ice likely on track

Snow / ice likely in winter

From the track junction, the Te Puke track heads east across broad, flat clay-pan summits, swinging due north after a kilometer or so, and dewscending slowly to the first of several saddles.

From here the track spends a lot of time on an exposed, bare ridgeline, dropping in between to long, flat saddles where stunted beech trees lap over the tops - at the limit of their range. In late summer, the whistles of sika serenade me from the faces below. There are no major climbs, but lots of short ups and downs over each peak. The tops sections are poled, and the bush sections well cut, so it is easy tramping, but exposed

The turnoff to Te Puke Hut is signposed left off the main track, and the hut is visible across a small basin 100m to the south.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

From Te Puke the track spends a lot of time on an exposed, bare ridgeline, dropping in between to long, flat saddles where stunted beech trees lap over the tops - at the limit of their range. In late summer, the whistles of sika serenade me from the faces below. There are no major climbs, but lots of short ups and downs over each peak. The tops sections are poled, and the bush sections well cut, so it is easy tramping, but exposed.

Finally, the narrow ridgeline broadens to wide, marshy tops – climbing, slowly drying as they rise, to reach the track junction on the flat summit.