Mt Owen

Walked by a CTC member

Mt Owen is a 24.2 km, 3-day tramp in Nelson/Tasman with 2,670 m of climbing and a high point of 1,876 m.

A 3-day trip, shown here as one track: 14–16 March 2005.

User-generated track: recorded on a GPS by a Christchurch Tramping Club member on a past trip. It is not an official or maintained track, and the line, notes and conditions may be out of date or wrong. Check DOC for current track and hazard information, carry a map and plan for your own party.

Track stats

Elevation profile

Trip notes

From the club member's GPS log of the trip (14–16 March 2005), lightly edited, with people's names removed. Conditions may have changed since.

Day 2: we did the Mt Owen, Mt Bell and Replica Hill round trip from the camp in Poverty Basin.

Day 3, Poverty Basin to Sunrise Peak: back at the car at 12:23 pm (the valley section of the track is deleted). Much shorter than we expected, even though the ground between Mt Owen and Sunset Peak is quite intricate. We were surprised to find the Sunrise track poorly marked, though the ground trail was perfectly clear.

Waypoint notes

• Start traverse (-41.57390, 172.52396): A bit of white permolat marks the start of the traverse. A bit of a squeeze through a gap to start, but mostly just a track in the scrub and not at all exposed. The most exposed bit was the fixed ropes getting to this point.
• UP GULLY (-41.57562, 172.52627): We spent some time around here when the cairns seemed to run out, with a single cairn in the middle of an unlikely bouldery creek bed. The route turned out to be up this creek bed for a while, after which the way was obvious again.
• LADDER (-41.57255, 172.52530): Rope ladder up a small (about 5 m) overhanging bluff. We hauled packs up with the rope hanging alongside the ladder. Straightforward and not exposed, apart from the 5 m. Note: DOC was reported (2011) to have ordered the removal of this ladder, so it may no longer be there.
• Track to cave (-41.56528, 172.52076): A clear ground trail starts about here: open bush, soon followed by a cairned route mainly over limestone to the cave.
• Bulmer Cave ? (-41.56454, 172.52658): Well worth a look, but we were not game to do more than look from the entrance.
• Turnoff Sunrise (-41.56664, 172.53533): Important to turn off the ridge exactly here. There was a small cairn with a small line of rocks pointing over the edge. A few more cairns confirm the route, which is quite steep but straightforward and goes down the right of the two gullies below. After reaching easier ground, traverse right to the main spur and follow it down to the bush. The track entrance was unmarked, but the ground trail is obvious.
• Castle Tarn (-41.55878, 172.52786): Good campsite, but we didn't stay here.
• Bulmer track start (-41.58807, 172.54214): Immediately after the 5th ford of the Owen, go back down the valley a short distance to pick up the Bulmer track. It starts in or near the creek bed, is well marked with cairns and has a fairly clear ground trail. This GPS track will not be very accurate, as reception in here was very intermittent.
• Lost cairns (-41.55709, 172.53542): Lost the cairns in here somewhere but picked them up again on the crest of the ridge. There is probably a better way in this area. The whole area is very intricate, with many crevasses.
• Trade route here (-41.55335, 172.53431): We think we met the trade route over Mt Owen about here.
• OWEN TARN (-41.55090, 172.53551): Reasonable camping here.
• Poverty Camp (-41.54859, 172.53057): Great campsite beside a reasonable tarn, with another tarn a bit up the hill for washing.
• MAIN TRACK (-41.54869, 172.53948): Found the main Mt Owen trade route about here. This is probably the best way from Poverty Basin over to Granity Pass, as the flatter areas that look attractive on the map are actually very broken.

GPX file

Download the Mt Owen GPX file for your GPS or mapping app. The map on this page shows the same route. It is a GPS log of one past trip, not a surveyed track: use it with a map and your own judgement.

Nearby tracks

• Nelson Lakes (32.6 km away)
• Angelus Peak route (35.5 km away)
• Arnst Tarns - St Arnaud (41.0 km away)
• St Arnaud Range - Arnst Basins (45.4 km away)