"Great fun, first time off trial and we had a couple of hiccups but looking back we got great weather and it was worth the mahi. We stayed in triplex hut that night and headed to sunrise hut early, this is a nice wide track all up hill but easily done in 2.5hrs. We will come back to stay at sunrise as it is an awesome spot pity it was fully booked. We had a second breakfast and left the sunrise at 10am to head to Armstrong saddle and then off trail to Te Atuaoparara peak arriving there at 1.30pm, the way was a mix of bush and following a somewhat track from time to time. From here we traversed down the scree with the plan to join the Waikamaka hut trail via the Waipawa saddle, but we thought it might be quicker to try going down an unnamed valley, but we didn’t actually get the valley we thought and had to traverse around a 12.5m waterfall near the bottom of the valley which is marked on the map once we realised our mistake. This was a bit hairy but we managed. From there it was more river following back to the hut via an unmarked route arriving at Waikamaka hut at 7pm, 33,000+ steps later! Awesome first day to our annual Father and son peak bagging trip. See Rangioteatua peak for t..." — loganscott • Dec 28, 2025