What it’s like to hike to French Ridge Hut

I hiked the French Ridge Track with my 9 year old and 11 year old boys in a warm week in December.  I’ll premise this by saying that my boys are experienced trampers who have done a rafting of multi day walks and have walked long distances of up to 16-18km a day.

This is by no means an easy hike and is definitely not a beginners hike

Now with a bit of safety stuff out the way because I’d hate familes going in with few skills thinking this is an everyday hike, let me share our plans and thinking on this hike.

Some people hike this trail as an overnight tramp, doing the 17-18km each way in one day, however the thought of doing a huge climb after 15km of walking in didn’t sound too appealing so we broke up this trip into a 3 day / 2 night tramping trip.

Day One:  Raspberry Flat Carpark to Aspiring Hut (9km)

On day one, we walked in from Raspberry Flat Carpark to Aspiring Hut, which was a pretty easy 9km hike with some very mild undulations.  In tramping terms, this is a flat track with one small steep hill.  It took us about 3 hours with my 6 year old daughter who did the first day of this trip with us.

There were lots of little streams here so we did our best not to get wet feet since we still had another two days on the trails.  I’d say there were perhaps a dozen small streams.  If you had gaiters, that would be ideal but we rock and log hopped and didn’t get wet feet.  The deepest was probably lower calf, but over my hiking boots if you wanted to walk straight through them.

We stayed at the brand new Aspiring Hut overnight and left the following morning.  Aspiring Hut is run as a joint effort by the New Zealand Alpine Club (NZAC) and the Department of Conservation (DOC).  You need to book your visit at this Mt Aspiring Hut online at the DOC website in advance. (It’s a super popular family friendly hut so can be busy in weekends and holidays)

You can read in more details about the hike to Aspiring Hut in my detailed article here

Day Two:  Aspiring Hut to French Ridge Hut (about 9km)

The hike to French Ridge Hut was around 9km according to my garmin, with 6km on the flat, past Shovel Flat and Pearl Flat and a steep 3km climb straight up the mountain, with about 1000m of elevation gain to French Ridge Hut.

I actually thought the first section to Pearl Flat was all open in the valley, but in fact we spent a lot of the time in the bush which I wasn’t expecting.

We left that hut at 7.50am

Part 1: Up the Valley (2 hours)

As soon as you leave Aspiring Hut you head into the bush and over a big swingbridge that just opened that week.  So as at December 2024, you don’t need to get your feet wet by crossing any rivers to get to French Ridge Hut.  The warden said there were two brand new bridges along the track which were amazing and I’m very stoked they exist.

It took us about an hour to reach Shovel Flat which was awe inspiring.  After being in the bush and at our first look at the mountains and actually spotting French Ridge up to the right, the valley opened to Shovel Flat and it felt like an opening scene to a movie.  It was beautiful to say the least and made me skip a little… I get a little excited by pretty views.

It was another hour for us to reach Pearl Flat and this was a little mucky.  Be prepared to get dirty boots as there’s lots of mud to squelch through or try to avoid.  Funny how you try to avoid it on the way up but on the way back when you’re just tired and heading home to just traipse right through the centre.

You know you’ve reached Pearl Flat when you see the double swing bridges.  The first swingbridge is the turnoff to Liverpool Hut which is about 600m of elevation straight up to the left.  The second swingbridge takes you to the start of the French Ridge Track (or take the Upper Matukituki track to the head of the valley, an expert trail only)

note: DOC signage said it would take 1 hour 30 minutes to reach Pearl Flat but it took us 2 hours both ways with a few stops for photos

Part II: The Climb: 3 ¼  hours + 30 mins lunch

Then we hit the hard stuff, the big steep climb up to French Ridge Hut.  We had about 500-600m of elevation gain in the bush and a further 400m or so of climbing up on the open ridgeline.

The climbing through the bush was relentless.  While you couldn’t get lost and the trail was clearly trodden, it wasn’t like it was a path.  That would mean you could put one foot in front of the other.  It was a lot of root holding, using your hands and feet the majority of the time to push and pull yourself up.  

There weren’t any technical sections where you couldn’t reach, or had to jump across rocks.  It all felt very safe.  It was just the fact you had a heavy pack on your back and had to climb and climb.

But we took it pretty easily and ate snacks and drank a lot of water.  I’d say it was around 20C which was pretty hot and we actually did run out of water.  We knew there were some alpine tarns futher up the trail, so we filtered water once we were there, but I did wish I had refilled our bottles in the river before we headed up so we were “fully full”.

The first bushy scramble climbing up the 500m took us about 2 hours, with us reaching the first tarn at 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Here we sat and had some lunch, filtered water and had a good rest, before it started to spit and we spent the next hour climbing up to French Ridge Hut.

I’m a little gutted that it started to rain here and we just had to put our head down and walk.  This ridgeline section with all the little alpine tarns was super pretty.  You could see all the way down the Matukituki Valley below and up towards some of Mt Aspiring National Parks beautiful glaciers.  We couldn’t really much around and really enjoy the views here, but it was cool all the same.

This section took us about an hour to climb.

So from Aspiring Hut to French Ridge Hut, including breaks and lunch, it took us 5 hours and 40 minutes.  If you’re an adult regular tramper, the DOC hut warden told us it usually takes her about 4 hours.

We were pretty wet when we arrived as the last 10 minutes the rain got much heavier and it started to hail.  Fortunately we were one of the first groups to arrive and got our pick of the bunk beds and just set up for the afternoon.

The weather didn’t actually settle until about 9pm at night when it was actually pretty cold, so we didn’t get to see any of the views until the morning.  We never had quite enough time to explore around the outside of the hut as we wanted to get going for the big walk back.  Perhaps we would stay a second night next time, who knows.