This article was first published in Tararua Tramper, March 2025, pp 13-14, with a map and photos.
Parks Peak not Park Pass
MF - 21-25 January
It was the day before departure on our long- planned, Five Passes trip in Mount Aspiring National Park. The forecast was for multiple wet days and some very low temperatures, and we were camping every night – it seemed wise to cancel. So, we were all packed up with nowhere to go. Kate suggested we head for the Northern Ruahine Range.
As we headed north in the club van, via Wairarapa and Southern Hawke’s Bay, the grey skies and mist-shrouded mountains seemed unlikely to provide us with much better weather conditions than the South Island - but at least we would have huts to shelter in, or so we thought.
About 1.30 p.m., we headed up the track from Sentry Box Hut to the ridge top 750 metres almost directly above. It was a pleasure to be on these Ruahine tracks that, while steep and a little wet, provide great grip and few oversized steps. Approaching the ridge top we entered a mist shroud and were at the light, airy Parks Peak Hut by 4.50 p.m.
Overnight it rained and Mike, who had pitched his new tent on a nearby patch of mossy ground, found himself surrounded by a moat of puddles. A rain day was taken, although at the end of it we descended 700 metres to the small, four-bunk Upper Makaroro Hut in the Makaroro River valley. It was still raining so we crammed ourselves into the hut rather than pitch a tent, with Mike and Kate sleeping on the floor – Mike under a bunk.
The Inreach forecast was for fine weather the next day so five of us set off for Ruahine Corner Hut, a destination strongly recommended to us by Kate, who was unable to continue with us because of a recurring injury. The 750 metre climb up Totara Spur started right outside the hut door and was initially near perpendicular. We enjoyed lunch in the sun near the top of the ridge, and expansive views. Then it was over pt 1503 and along the mostly descending track to Ruahine Corner. Along the way Susi spotted Lake Colenso far below us and had encounters with a giant snail making a dash across the track and a small flock of long-tailed cuckoos.
Ruahine Corner was, as Kate had told us, a very beautiful and comfortable hut on a high plateau (altitude 1200m) at the edge of the bush. We were surprised by the number of mature mountain cedars in and along the edge of the bush and by the number of mountain cabbage trees in the gully on the track to the east of Ruahine Corner.
The Inreach forecast for the following day changed from rain to sunshine so our planned wet retreat from Ruahine Corner to Upper Makaroro Hut became a circumnavigation of the ridges that are the watershed for the headwaters of the Makaroro River. Lynne led us back up the track to the tops at such a pace that we were at pt 1503 in three hours and 10 minutes. That left us with plenty of time to stride around the only mildly undulating ridges and a plateau that encircle the headwaters, taking in views of the bush-clad spurs plunging to rivers on each side, other Ruahine maunga and in the distance Kaweka Range, Kaimanawa Range, and Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe.
We reached our destination for that day, Aranga Hut, just after 3 p.m. as the mist rolled in. Kate had warned us that when she had last visited this hut it was in a very bad state but she had heard that it had since been tidied up. A sign on the door announced that ‘Aranga Hut is closed due to its dilapidated condition.’ The door opened, fortunately, to reveal a seriously dilapidated interior consisting of unlined walls, no fireplace, a many-times patched floor and two bottom bunks. Thankfully there was a water tank, miraculously full of water despite the spouting hanging loose from the building. The toilet had been decommissioned by being pushed over on its side. The hut provided a sheltered space in which to eat and store our packs. Three of us spent the night trying out our Five Passes tents while Lynne and Mike slept in relative luxury on the slatted bunks (no mattresses provided).
The fifth day dawned fine, and we made our way on another gently undulating marked track along the forested ridge tops (with views) towards the top of the track down to Sentry Box Hut and the club van. A morning tea stop at Pohatuhaha was another opportunity to take in 360 degree views, including Hawke’s Bay under a cotton wool cover of cloud. Kate, who was waiting for us at the van explained that when she visited Aranga the hut was so full of rubbish and debris that it couldn’t be slept in – so it had indeed been tidied up.
Postscript – while at the café in Norsewood, a couple attracted by the club van’s livery told us that after years of dispute about whether Aranga Hut was in the forest park or on Māori land it has been determined that it is just inside the park. Money is apparently set aside for the replacement of the hut and that will happen when DoC gets into gear. The replacement of Aranga Hut will make this very interesting circuit more accessible and open access to other isolated huts in this beautiful part of Northern Ruahine with colourful names like Rockslide, Mistake Biv, No Man's and Ikawetea Forks.
Gerald Leather (leader and scribe), Susi Lang, Kate Pitney, Mike Wespel-Rose, Lynne White, Tim Workman