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Bealey Spur to Point 1581, Arthur’s Pass

Mark Eaglesfield

Bealey Spur rises from the Waimakariri River to Point 1875 in the Black Range, south of Arthur’s Pass village, Canterbury, South Island. The trailhead is about 12 minutes south of Arthur’s Pass. I have done both a short hike and a medium-length hike on this spur. My medium-length hike reached Point 1581.

As the spur goes higher, the topomap calls it Hut Spur instead of Bealey Spur. I don’t see any justification for the name change, so I call it all Bealey Spur, as other bloggers do.

Speaking of names, don’t confuse this spur with Mt Bealey, which is next to Arthur’s Pass village.

Time

DOC estimates that it takes 2 hours 30 minutes to reach Bealey Spur Hut. AllTrails users report an average of 4 hours 22 minutes round-trip.

Including all breaks, my return trip to Point 1581 took around 6 hours 30 minutes.

Route

Underlined in purple at lower left are the two prominent spots where I might turn around if I were doing this as a full-day hike in good weather.

Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Round-trip, AllTrails reports 940 meters of elevation gain to Point 1545, over 15.6 kilometers of track. I’d guess there is around 80 meters more elevation gain and 1.2 kilometers more track for the round-trip to Point 1581.

There is a medium sized, narrow but long parking lot to the right of the highway (driving south from Arthur’s Pass). From here, it’s an easy walk up a residential road (with only a few houses) to the trailhead.

The hike begins in forest, on an easy track. It continues steadily uphill, passing through some more open bushy areas and some wide open tussocky areas. The track quality becomes worse beyond Bealey Spur Hut. There are orange marker poles through the forest but, in my opinion, not enough to easily spot them. Once the forest ends, it is easy to see an impact track ascending up the spur.

Jonty calls Point 1545 ‘Triangle Peak.’ It’s not on the topomap, but I am happy to endorse this name.

I stopped at Point 1581. I imagine I could have reached Point 1875 at the top of the spur, and the nearby high point 1907, with more time and more liquid. I’ve underlined these two points in purple at the lower left of the topomap screenshot. See below for more information on hikes that go higher.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this hike a 1 as far as Bealey Spur Hut, and mostly a 2 beyond it, with a 3 at brief instances (a few meters) of tricky footing on the rocky ridge of the spur.

The spur ascends to the southwest.

Hunting

Almost the entire route is in a hunting area. Hunters are forbidden to “discharge firearms near tracks, huts, campsites, road-ends or any other public place.” I have hiked in more than 30 hunting areas, and only passed hunters twice - this wasn’t one of those hikes.

Here is the DOC topomap with all hunting areas visible.

Pages about hikes that stopped below Point 1581

Pages about hikes that went beyond Point 1581

Tristan, the proprietor of Hanmer Backpackers in Hanmer Springs, made a circuit to the west via Jordan Saddle, Jordan Stream, and the Anti-Crow Hut track beside the Waimakariri. You would need to shift my topomap screenshot up and left to see this route. Here are some posts on it: