Routeburn Track

The landmarks of Routeburn Track

11 landmarks, in walking order. Each photograph is by the person credited beneath it, used as they licensed it.

1. 

   0 km in · Start

   Routeburn Shelter

   The Route Burn slides clear and cold beneath the road-end bridge, and beyond it the beech forest closes over the track. Here the Routeburn begins, one of New Zealand's Great Walks, thirty-two kilometres across the spine of the Southern Alps between Mount Aspiring and Fiordland national parks. Kea call from the canopy. The Humboldt Mountains rise ahead.

2. 

   7 km in · Camp

   Routeburn Flats Hut

   The forest opens onto the Routeburn Flats, a wide meadow of tussock where the river braids across gravel and the peaks stand mirrored in still side-pools. The hut sits at the bush edge, looking back down the valley. Red deer graze the flats at dusk. Above, the track climbs toward the falls and the treeline.

3. 

   10 km in · Camp

   Routeburn Falls Hut

   Water thunders down tiered rock beside the hut, the Routeburn Falls dropping through a staircase of granite slabs. The hut's deck hangs at the very top of the forest, the last shelter before the alpine. Cloud often fills the valley below at dawn. From here the track leaves the trees for the open tops and the climb to Harris Saddle.

4. 

   13 km in · Mountain pass

   Harris Saddle

   At 1,255 metres the track tops out on Harris Saddle, the high crossing between two great valleys. A day shelter stands against the wind. The side climb to Conical Hill lifts the view further, out over the Hollyford valley toward the Tasman Sea when the weather allows. Alpine daisies and snow tussock cover the ground.

5. 

   13 km in · Water

   Lake Harris

   Just below the saddle lies Lake Harris, a long tarn cupped in bare rock, its water the deep blue-green of glacial melt. The track skirts high above the shore on a ledge cut into the mountainside. Snow lingers in the gullies here into summer. Keas patrol the rocks, bold and curious, quick to investigate an unguarded pack.

6. 

   16 km in · Landmark

   Ocean Peak Corner

   The track rounds a shoulder of the range at Ocean Peak Corner, and the whole Hollyford valley opens below — the river threading north to the sea, the Darran Mountains walling the horizon in ice and rock. On a clear day the Tasman Sea glints at the valley mouth. The path runs level here along the Hollyford Face, high above the trees.

7. 

   20 km in · Camp

   Lake Mackenzie Hut

   The track drops off the tops in switchbacks to Lake Mackenzie, a dark lake ringed by beech forest and cliffs, the hut set on a grassy flat at its edge. Ribbonwood and fuchsia grow along the shore. Morning mist lifts slowly off the water. The valley walls rise steep on every side, holding the lake in shadow well past dawn.

8. 

   25 km in · Water

   Earland Falls

   The track passes beneath Earland Falls, a 174-metre ribbon that drops sheer from the hanging valley above and drenches anyone crossing at its foot in heavy rain. Spray hangs in the beech forest. In flood the crossing can close entirely. Mosses and ferns crowd the wet rock, vivid green, fed year-round by the falling water.

9. 

   28 km in · Camp

   Lake Howden Hut

   Lake Howden sits at a junction of valleys, its hut among tall beech at the water's edge. From here the track to Key Summit branches off, and the Greenstone track heads south into its own long valley. The lake is still and tea-dark. This is the last shelter on the Routeburn, one short climb and one long descent from the road.

10. 

    29 km in · Summit

    Key Summit

    A short climb lifts the track onto Key Summit, 919 metres, a rare watershed where three river systems part — the Hollyford to the Tasman Sea, the Greenstone and the Eglinton to the south. A boardwalk loops through alpine bog, tarns and bog-pine on the exposed top. The Darran Mountains stand close and sharp. Few viewpoints give so much for so little climb.

11. 

    32 km in · Finish

    The Divide

    The track drops through silver beech to The Divide, at 531 metres the lowest east–west pass in the Southern Alps crossed by a road. The Milford road runs past the car park here, buses bound for the sound. Thirty-two kilometres of alpine crossing end at the forest edge, where the Milford Sound buses pull in. Most walkers stop for one last look up at the tops before stepping onto the tarmac.