Hi Im planning to do caples, greenstone, routeburn, sugarloaf pass, rees-dart and cascade saddle side trip combination in January taking about 12 days. Just a couple of things i need a bit more info about.
I cant actually book any of the huts/campsites on the routeburn because well its all booked out anyways but we are doing the dusky before that which may take longer if rain impedes our passage and so dont have firm dates for our second tramp. I know that it's legal to camp more than 500m off the trail and that near the routeburn flat huts is another trail that follows the north branch that we can easily follow to find a campsite so that location is ok. On the DOC maps there is a similar trail that goes to the end of lake Mackenzie that is easily over a km away from the hut and track but has anybody camped at that end of the lake and is it ok? Please only comment on this if you have done this yourself or know a friend who has. (Note that Im not trying to break any rules and im an experienced hiker who can navigate away from the trail).
Also one idea that i want to explore is crossing the dart river to get to the dart track. I understand that the 5 passes track (beans burn) starts on the other side of the dart river near chinamans bluff and have read that it MAY be crossable at this point but that information was before the landslide 18 mths ago and i wondered if anyone had any more recent information about crossing the dart river in January? I also need information on how easy it is to walk north along the true right side of the river from rockburn river to beans burn. Again ive read that its possible (here http://www.thehikinglife.com/2010/09/qu ... aka-route/) but have little information about the actual conditions. If it turns out i cant i am exploring other options but wanted to rule this possibility out first.
Thanks