French Ridge & Liverpool Huts

The Aspiring Range is so accessible from Wanaka. About a 1 hour drive gets you to Raspberry Carpark and the start of the hikes, and it’s a super easy/flat hike to the closest hut; Aspiring Hut.

We were quite keen on covering a lot of ground this weekend and I had just bought myself a 30L fastpack so i was chomping to try it out. We met up with our new friends Natti and Freddie, with the idea of missioning up to French Ridge Hut for the first night, and then down and across to Liverpool Hut for the second night.

It was a long beautiful stretch to Aspiring hut (which I’d be pretty keen to cycle next time!), and then a steep 2km straight up to FR Hut. The hut was sitting just above the snow line which made for beautiful sunset photos over the hut.

We arrived at the hut in the early afternoon and decided to explore up above the hut with our microspikes (perhaps crampsons might have been better). We could see Liverpool Hut straight accross the valley infront of us which was pretty cool!

The next day we got down fairly early and took a jog along the valley floor back to Aspiring Hut (to get some distance under the legs!), and then headed back up toward Liverpool Hut. There’s a slabby section called “the slip” which becomes pretty sketchy in winter, but luckily it wasn’t covered in snow or ice yet so was relatively straight forward. The views from Liverpool hut were incredible, and the hut itself was a little smaller and more honey than the FR hut (although neither had a fireplace, so very very cold nights!).

All in all a very pleasant 3 days exploring the Aspiring valley.

Trip stats:

• Day 1: Raspberry carpark to FR hut, 18km (roughly 4.5 hours)
• Day 2: FR Hut to Liverpool Hut via Aspiring Hut, 16km (roughly 4.5hrs)
• Day 3: Liverpool Hut back to carpark 17km (just under 3 hours jogging)