Mt Cassidy Track starts at Devil’s Punchbowl Falls at the northern end of Arthur’s Pass. The track first crosses the Bealey River, then climbs steeply through a pretty beech forest. On the NZ Topo Map, it’s marked as Cons Track. It is quite steep, and if you find this challenging, it’s a good idea to turn around at the bushline and return the same way. It only gets harder from there.
From the bushline, the track is vaguely marked with orange poles and traverses around pt1287 before climbing back up onto a flat ridge. This section is probably the steepest and the first challenge. It also wouldn’t be very pleasant to descend, so if you’re unsure, don’t continue beyond the bushline.
Once on the flat ridge, the sporadic marking stops and the vague track is only occasionally indicated by the odd rock cairn. Navigation is fairly straightforward: follow the ridge, keep going up, and don’t drop down towards Devil’s Punchbowl Creek. It’d be rather quick and it’d hurt very much. From Mt Cassidy, the route follows the ridgeline more or less. Just before the final, intimidating-looking ascent to a rocky outcrop known as Blimit, an easy escape scree route drops down to tarns at the head of Twin Creek.
The final ascent to Blimit is not as bad as it looks; however, you’ll also need to descend the same way. An alternative is to drop into the basin from the far side of Blimit, which didn’t look too bad, though it involves a steep rock section that turns into loose scree.
If you’re feeling adventurous (as we were), you can continue along the ridge to Temple Col, from where it’s an easy stroll down beautiful scree to Page Memorial Hut. However, the challenge isn’t the descent from Temple Col – it’s getting there. We managed to follow the ridge from Blimit for about 100 metres before giving up on what was turning into a rock-climbing exercise and descending towards the tarn instead. This descent wasn’t straightforward and was probably the most difficult part of the trip. Unless you’re very confident on steep terrain, it’s better to descend to the tarns directly from Blimit, or – better still – retrace your steps towards Mt Cassidy and, after about 80 vertical metres from Blimit, take a more inviting scree slope down to the tarns.
From the tarns, it’s just a matter of picking your way through a series of gentle bluffs down to Page Memorial Hut. From there, you can follow a marked track to Lockwood Shelter and on to the Temple Basin car park. On the other side of SH73, a DOC track leads back to the Devil’s Punchbowl car park.
It was a pretty epic trip, with great views of Mt Rolleston and all the way out to the West Coast. It’s actually not that exposed, unless you decide to venture behind Blimit.
Stats: 13.2 km, 8h (regular pace I’d say – not too fast, not too slow), 1700 m ascent. Track on NZ Topo Map (GPW download below).
Participants: Michal Klajban (leader, scribe, GPX), Simon Brown, Lisa McArthur, Simon Barr
Tramped on 25th April 2026.
Photos
Map
Max elevation: 1917 m
Min elevation: 759 m
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