The 4 of us set off from the Routeburn carpark at 3.06am on Saturday morning and finish at the same place 22.5 hours later after what was a good day out.
Our time is by no means fast as there was 4 of us which means 4x faff and some sit down breaks. This was more just a day out, but just thought it would be fun to get a FKT started. I know that other locals have done it faster so would be fun to have more people do the route and share some stories. Our navigation was pretty good as 2 of us had done the route the year prior where we had gone wrong a few times. This would create challenges for any first time visitors as there’s several places where the route is unclear, even if you follow gpx tracks.
The water levels were pretty low so had no problems fording the Routeburn, Rockburn and Beansburn. These crossings could cause problems in bad weather, but then you probably wouldn’t do the route in bad weather?!
The route is never very technical or exposed compared to other similar routes in the area. Just quite slow going especially up the Beansburn and on the traverse towards Fiery Col. Worth noting that this route takes longer than it looks on paper if you are not familiar with the terrain. Lots of streams and water everywhere so we never carried much on us.