Upper Travers Hut

Upper Travers Hut is a 24-bunk serviced hut on a broad tussock flat below the east face of Mount Travers. It is an overnight stop on the 80 km Travers-Sabine Circuit, an advanced tramping route that usually takes four to seven days. From John Tait Hut, allow about three hours to reach it; this is a backcountry approach, not a walk in from a road. Book a bunk before setting out.

The track climbs through the narrow chasm at Cupola Creek, with a signed short detour to Travers Falls, a 20 m cascade dropping into a deep basin. Beyond the falls, the route passes stunted forest before opening onto the tussock flat and the hut beneath Mount Travers’s rough east face. Step back on the open flat and frame the hut with the mountain behind it; that puts the scale of the basin into the picture.

The hut has bunks and mattresses, toilets, and an untreated water supply. Bring all your food: there is no meal service, and the water needs boiling or other treatment before drinking. It is a sheltered place to stop in a remote valley, but not a stocked lodge or a trailhead facility.

The route onward to West Sabine Hut takes six to nine hours, depending on conditions. Travers Saddle rises about 450 m above Upper Travers and takes roughly an hour and a half to climb. It is an exposed alpine crossing: ice axes and crampons can be needed in winter and well into spring, snow may linger, and the saddle can freeze at any time of year. Treat the crossing as a serious mountain leg, not an easy walk after a night indoors.

The present hut was built in 2004 to replace an older Upper Travers Hut that stood in an avalanche path. That makes the open flat below the mountain more than a scenic setting: it is also the reason the current building sits where it does.