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DOC Land
Altitude: 651m to 1348m. Gain: 240m. Loss: 881m . Gradient: 11 deg (Moderate)
Skills: Prolonged scrambles (4/7) - Occasional rivers (3/6)
Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey
From Whare Creek Hut follow the river upstream in the river bed, crossing as required for best travel. Near the top of the flats shown on the map, enter the bush on the true right and continue heading upriver. An animal trail can be followed usually within 20-50 metres of the riverbank, but the bush is fairly open. As you near the bush edge on the map, look out for a ridge climbing up a hill. The animal trail will begin to sidle across the face of the steep slope of the hill, heading towards a fallen beech tree. If you haven't located the animal trail yet, you should find it in the hole where the beech tree's roots used to be. Follow the trail upstream as it crosses the face of the hillside and then plunges into dense scrub. The trail heads directly to the top of the riverbank just upstream of a gorge in Whare Creek, and then sidles down the steep bank to connect to Whare Creek. From here, more river flats are followed before the animal trail climbs up the riverbank on the true right side, and pushes through scrub on either side of the stream draining Pt1532. Once through that, a large grassy field is crossed before more scrub is reached and the animal trail seems to peter out. Push through scrub down into the river bed, and again follow river flats upstream. Between the 740m and 760m contours, the river gorges again. You can actually follow this gorge for a short distance with dry boots, and it may even be possible to walk right through the gorge, but where you encounter the first knee-deep pool, look for the animal trail on the true right side pushing up from the riverbed to the top of the riverbank above the gorge. Following the trail upriver, it skirts the edge of the gorge until the scrub eases up and more grassy fields are crossed to reach the stream coming down from the southern flanks of Excelsior Peak. Begin climbing the hillside here, climbing grassy slopes between scrub. It's a steady grunt all the way up to hit a small ridge crest at 1000m running southwest to northeast above a large scree gully to the immediate north. Climb to the northeast, skirting the edge of the scree, and through some small bluffs onto the main north-south ridgeline above, at 1080m. Unfortunately, this main ridge is almost immediately blocked above by soaring bluffs. The topomap doesn't really show this part, but a gully begins dropping eastwards down the opposite side of the north-south ridge towards a scree gully far below... the stream shown on the topomap. Fortunately, you don't need to descend more than about 50m. Sidel northwards as soon as the small gully opens up on your left-hand side, steep slopes thankfully remain bluff-free, and you can sidle through to a northerly gully which runs parallel to the stream shown on the map. Climb to the north here into a grassy basin. You can continue climbing up to the main ridge tops above, or do what we did and sidle across to visit the tarns south of Pt1416, where there's good-looking camp spots at both tarns. From the tarns, it's simple to sidle across scree slopes and onto the main ridge southwest of Pt1416. The main ridge is followed westwards to the saddle at 1230-ish metres. The ridge is far more jagged than the map implies, with steep drop-offs and some gendarmes, but these can be bypassed on the slopes beneath them. Once at the saddle, it becomes obvious that the ridge climbing up to Excelsior Peak is not worth the effort to follow due to more gendarmes. Traverse through steep scree slopes and gullies on the northern side of the ridge to reach grassy slopes at the head of Elm Tree Creek. The slopes can be followed up to the tarns beneath Excelsior Peak. There's good camping at the southern tarn shown on the map (actually the middle tarn of 3).