Distance: 4.2 km (2.0 DOC hours) - Unmarked route, clear - Easy-moderate terrain
Altitude: 942m to 1181m. Gain: 579m. Loss: 375m . Gradient: 13 deg (Moderate)
Skills: Occasional scrambles (3/7) - Occasional rivers (3/6)

Unmarked route, clear (7/9)
Unmarked route, follows obvious geography (river, spur, trail, etc)

Primary, unmapped (2/5)
Route not on maps, but is principal access to hut or along range / catchment

Moderate (difficulty: 3/5)
Occasional moderate climbs

Easy-moderate (difficulty: 2/5)
Tussock / river-gravel / open bush / cut track

Occasional scrambles (difficulty: 3/7)
Tramp with some scrambles and exposure to falls

Occasional rivers (difficulty: 3/6)
Occasional rivers - impassible after heavy rain

Unknown (difficulty: 0/7)
Not specified

A sign on the ridge just south of Longview Hut points west, where a sporadically poled route heads down a bare (but relatively stable) face into the river. Final descent into the river is to the upstream side at the end of the face. Two clambers down waterfalls are fairly straight forward on the true right. The river is open for a bit, until a short up and over (plenty of vegetation to hang onto) just upstream of the forks. Below this, travel is much easier and faster with open sections and levels below knee deep in normal flows. Top Gorge Hut is on the true left - the chimney can be seen on the true left and large orange triangles on the right bank mark the track up to Ngamoko Range.

Note: Described in the reverse direction to your journey

Above Top Gorge the river itself becomes easy to walk up - below knee deep in normal flows with grass and shingle banks. However, the valleysides become steep - bluffs and slips, and on places the valley is narrow. Going is quite easy (for a river route) until the fork below Longview Hut. Here a waterfall blocks travel up the riverbed. A sometimes-cut, marked track bypasses this on the true right. However, the face is slipping away and there's a 1.5m vertical drop where the ground has slumped that must be scrambled up with nothing but light vegetation to hold on to. Once above, you sidle the true right briefly before dropping to the creek. Above the falls the valley is a collection of slips and bare gravel spurs. The track climbs the spur just south of the hut, but to reach it you must travel upriver on the true right and circle back to approach it from above - all on steep, crumbly faces. Once on the spur and 20m out of the river, going is good and the route marked to the ridgeline. A signpost (Top Gorge Hut) marks the turnoff.

Longview hut is 100m north, tucked off the eastern side of the ridgeline - marked again by a signpost.This section of ridgeline forms a fierce funnel for the westerly, and frequently it can be barely possible to stand. The hut is more sheltered in the lee of the range.