Price Flat Hut to Neave Hut

Price Flat Hut to Neave Hut covers 8.8 km, near Hokitika in West Coast, walked as a point-to-point.

The fourth leg of DOC's Whitcombe Pass Track, carrying on from our Frew Hut to Price Flat Hut page. DOC heads this section Price Flat to Neave Creek Hut, its name for the same six bunk hut, and gives it 4 to 5 hours; our line makes it about 8.8 km. For once the day does not open with a ford: from Price Flat Hut you rejoin the main valley track and cross Cataract Creek on its swing bridge, one of the few bridges in this valley you are actually meant to use. From there the track continues across the bush face, crossing or climbing above large, active slips, before returning to the riverbed just above Chairman Creek, then the stones carry you several hundred metres until the track re-enters the bush and continues up the valley. On the way up the valley the track passes a signposted side track to Wilkinson Hut, which crosses the Whitcombe River to the true left on a swing bridge, 15 to 20 minutes each way to a four bunk hut with an open fire. The main valley track stays on its own bank and carries on through the bush past Cave Camp at the Wilkinson River confluence, where DOC promises excellent views of Mt Evans, the Wilkinson Ice Fall and the Shelf Glacier. From Cave Camp the travel alternates between bush and riverbed, at one point climbing high above the Whitcombe, until Neave Hut appears: six bunks and a wood stove, the last real roof before the pass. The dog rule is the valley's permit rule: dogs with a DOC permit only, the hunting-dog kind, arranged with the Hokitika DOC office before you go, because the whole leg is stewardship conservation land and DOC treats a pet on it without written permission as an offence. Be honest about the day: the slips between Price Flat and Chairman Creek are large and active, some of the steep side streams at this level become avalanche chutes in winter and early spring, and a dog has to move carefully on loose rock beside you, deep in a valley with no quick way out. Our line follows the mapped track corridor and reads as the corridor rather than a survey. This is advanced tramping for fit, well equipped and experienced parties; carry a locator beacon and give the forecast the final say. Above Neave Hut we have deliberately not drawn a fifth page. DOC gives the final leg, Neave Creek Hut to Whitcombe Pass, 3 to 4 hours: the track leads through alpine scrub to the Whitcombe River near the Gateway, and from there, in DOC's words, travel to the Pass is via the riverbed, crossing the river where convenient. There is no fixed line above the Gateway and no bridge over any of those crossings, so any route we drew would be an invention. The permit rule runs all the way to the pass, and if you take a dog that far, the riverbed and the weather set the route on the day, not a line on this site.

Graded hard, it climbs about 519 m overall, and takes about 2 hr 37 to walk.

A DOC dog permit is required before any dog walks here. Arrange it with the managing DOC office ahead of your trip. This walk is on the map because Dre & Hazel suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.