Tramping the Routeburn Track

On November 19, 2015, we set out to tramp the Routeburn Track.  Some of the descriptions of the track in this blog entry are taken from Wikipedia, but the information is useful and it's hard to improve on Wikipedia sometimes.

The Routeburn Track is a world-renowned tramping track, about 20 miles in length, located north of Queenstown near the town of Glenorchy in the South Island of New Zealand. It was named one of the top eleven trails in the world by the National Geographic Adventure Magazine in May 2005.  The track is usually completed by starting on the Queenstown side of the Southern Alps, at the northern end of Lake Wakatipu, and finishing on the Te Anau side, at the Divide, a few miles from the Homer Tunnel to Milford Sound.  The New Zealand Department of Conservation classifies this track as a Great Walk and maintains four huts along the track: Routeburn Flats Hut, Routeburn Falls Hut, Mackenzie Hut, and Howden Hut; in addition there is an emergency shelter at Harris Saddle. The track overlaps two National Parks; the Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Parks with the border and highest point being the Harris Saddle.

As it is a relatively short track, much of the Routeburn Track is easily accessible to day hikers, and local guiding companies offer many day hike options on the Track.

Our guide and driver, Steve, picked us up and drove us in the early morning mists along the east shore of Lake Wakatipu:

After 45 minutes or so, we reached Glenorchy, where we picked up our pack lunches.  Steve noted to us that the flat area around Glenorchy, known as the Dart River Valley --

-- was used as the locations for various scenes in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Most notably, the Castle of Rohan was digitally superimposed on the valley to take advantage of the striking mountains in the background.  Note the similarity between the photos above and below:

Leaving the Dart River Valley, we entered the forest and found the trailhead for the Routeburn Track. Our guide Steve is in the red shirt in the photo below:

Our group was the perfect size to give us a chance to socialize, while also getting to spend lots of time pumping Steve with questions about the Track and the region through which it runs.  Steve was very knowledgeable about the ecology of the region and spent much time explaining it to us.

Steve related to us the history of the Routeburn Track.  He noted that the name is taken from the river it follows:  the Routeburn, which is of Scottish origin and literally means "Route River," being the river along which the historic route over the mountains was found.  The following is taken from the website of our guide company.

The first human traffic in the Routeburn area (around 1500AD) is believed to have been local Maori on the pursuit of their precious Pounamu (New Zealand Greenstone or Jade). The Routeburn itself didn't contain large quantities of Greenstone, but was used by Maori as a passage between two of their main sources, the Dart Valley and the Arahura River on the West Coast.

David McKellar and George Gunn were the first Europeans to map the area whilst searching for grazing land in 1861. Gold was discovered and so the government investigated establishing a port on the West Coast and a track up the Routeburn Valley over the Harris Saddle to the Hollyford Valley with the intention of transporting gold overseas. Work was started on the track but abandoned in 1870. However the Routeburn did become the link between those families who had settled in the Hollyford Valley and the Wakatipu, which was a thriving commercial centre.

The first sightseers from Queenstown up the Routeburn Valley were in the 1880s. The NZ Government Department of Tourism was set up in the early 1900s, and work on the Routeburn Track restarted. In 1912 a direct route from the saddle to Lake Howden was investigated, which led to the discovery of Lake Mackenzie. Construction of the track began, but tools were downed with the outbreak of World War 1 and this section was not completed until the late 1930s.

This area gets much less rain than the Milford Sound, and the forests are very different, especially on the eastern side of the saddle, which due to less rainfall is predominantly made up of New Zealand red beech and mountain beech, with relatively few ferns.

Starting at Routeburn Road end, the track crosses a suspension bridge and starts as a gentle sidle up the true left hand side of the Routeburn:

The well graded track crosses Sugarloaf Stream...

...and the Bridal Veil Waterfall and leads to a steeper climb that goes above the gorge to Forge Flat, the site of an early blacksmith camp.

The valley opens up soon after this point, re-crosses the Routeburn and heads towards the Routeburn Flats.

Leaving the Routeburn Flats, the track climbs steadily towards the Routeburn Falls Hut, passing Eagle Bluff and Emily Creek...

...to the site of a major rockslide that occurred in 1987. The slide cleared the beech forest from around the track, affording views back down the Routeburn as well as up the Routeburn (north branch) towards Mt. Somnus and Mt. Momus.

Eventually, after a 6-mile hike, we reached Routeburn Falls:

From the Falls, we had a spectacular view down the Routeburn Valley from whence we had come:

The company guiding our hike, Ultimate Hikes New Zealand, built and manages a lodge beside the publicly maintained Routeburn Falls Hut.  The lodge is well appointed, sunny and warm, and we enjoyed our bag lunches with some warm coffee and tea in the open lounge:

Another 6 mile hike back, and we returned the way we had come to the trailhead near the head of the Dart River Valley.  We spent the van ride back to Queenstown remembering and raving about the sights we had seen this glorious day.