I stayed the night at DoC’s Urchin Campsite because it was free and a quick drive to the start of the track. I regretted my laziness and sleeping in my car, instead of pitching my tent the day before. I had a crap sleep and was more than ready to get up and have breakfast by the time the first car left the campsite at 7am. Cars had continued to roll into the campsite well past 10.30pm the night before - how they managed to find this place in the dark is beyond me.


Urchin Campsite is a basic, free campsite with a long-drop toilet. The closest water source is a ten-minute walk along the Tree Trunk Gorge Track.

You technically don’t need a 4WD to drive up the gravel road to get to the parking area - a 2WD with decent ground clearance can get you there but go slow. The parking area to the start of the Mt Urchin track is more like a swooping wide corner with just enough room for about five or six cars. There weren’t any cars when I started, but it filled up by the time I got down.


Elevation starts at 823masl, while the trig is at 1,392masl. That’s 569m gained at just over 3km. In a nutshell, you’ll be going up, up, and up like that KPop Demon Hunters song. This was my first time hiking in the Kaimanawa Range, and being the tail-end of winter, I wasn’t sure how much snow and ice would be on the track. I even ordered some mini spikes, but they didn’t arrive in time, luckily I didn’t actually need them. The first 30 mins was a beautiful ascent through red beech trees - the morning light was quite peaceful. The track was pretty steady underfoot and dry.

Small pockets of snow along the track.

The temperature dropped a couple of degrees as I continued to climb - I felt it seeping through my long-sleeved merino, so I stopped to put on another layer and have a snack. I saw the first pockets of snow (barely boot sole high) along the track about an hour from the trig summit. If you live on the coast like me, seeing snow can definitely make you feel like a kid in a lolly shop. For the next half an hour, the track kept switching from rooty dirt, to pockets of snow, to slushy mud. Breaks in the canopy giving me glimpses of the snow-capped mountains nearby. Before I popped out of the bush section into the moraine, the track became steeper, narrower and eroded. More scrambling than hiking. The lower section was like a well-maintained walking track versus a backcountry bush walk.

Mountain views in the canopy breaks.

Once I finally left the bush, the sun decided to rain on my glorious weather window - playing hide and seek with the clouds of doom rolling in from the west. I figured the mountains would be clouded over before I reached the trig, so I decided to take a few shots for the ‘gram. Good call. It was a slow climb up to the trig, my legs suddenly feeling sluggish. Longest 15 minutes ever. Chilly wind gusts foiled my plans for my celebration cheese and crackers at the trig, so I kept going along the tops to see if I could find a bit of shelter from the wind. I settled for a large rock about 50m away.

It was too windy to have lunch at the Urchin Trig. 

Walking along the tops towards Waipakihi Valley.


Walking back to the trig, a blustery wind came up from the valley. Within minutes, the mountains behind me disappeared, so I decided to get myself off the summit and back down to the shelter of the bush. I met a couple on their way up not far from the bush line. The first people I had seen all morning. I saw them again in the car park a couple of hours later.

It was a pretty quiet day on the mountain - I had only met five other people and a dog. Walking back the way I came gave me a chance to enjoy the views of the mountains in the canopy breaks. More of the snow had melted or turned into slushy mud where the sun couldn’t reach. I’m definitely keen to come back and explore more of the Kaimanawa Range in the summer.