Can you Karanga-hack it

The most efficient official trail up. A pretty spicey climb up to get the lungs working and a great way to break up a road trip through Karangahake Gorge.

Starting at the main visitors centre car park, you cross the swing bridge and head towards the green DOC signs. From this point, take the upper Right hand turn, the Scotsman Gully track. This track has a little stream crossing and then pops up onto a 4WD track. Take a left turn heading up the 4WD track after cleaning your shoes at the station.

After about 800m of climbing up the 4WD track, you will come to a junction where you take a sharp right turn towards the summit rather than continuing up the road. This corner has DOC signage and can send you a few directions to get to the summit, but for this route you want to take the right turn.

After a further 800m of climbing, you will come to another turn off where the main track continues on an almost 90 degree turn to the right, and our trail takes a left turn.

From here it's a straight forward (and spicey) ascent up on a more technical trail, and after a kilometer of climbing you will pop out to the ridgeline. Take a sharp left turn and after a technical 300m you will pop up to the true summit.

Admire the view, grab your selfie, and then send it on the downhill right back down where you've come from.