The upper half of the Mahitahi valley is equal parts impressive as it is intimidating, where you’re surrounded by peaks over 2000m in every direction, with hanging ice and permanent snow on the shady faces.

The fairly straight forward pass in the head basin bears the name of one of our more notable early explorers Gerhard Mueller, who was responsible for surveying more than a few West Coast towns as well as many of Westlands more rugged valleys.

With Zora creek just over the pass, the Jacobs to the north and the Otoko to the south. The Mahitahi is smack in the middle of some of our finest wilderness, and home to it’s fair share of tahr.

Chris McCarthy glassing from the lower campsite

With upper and lower landing sites you have the option of hunting the upper tussock country with its steeper sides and camping fairly exposed at about 1100m. Or the steep rocky creeks of the lower site with it’s more sheltered but dark and cold campsite at about 700m. The lower camp has the benefit of being sheltered from the wind being in a couple of small openings in a patch of bush, but see’s basically no sun.  With just enough room for a couple of tents, and somewhat of a fire pit up against the side of a big boulder it’s a good idea to start picking up any dry wood you see when you’re not too far off camp at the end of the day.

With tahr at all levels both sites are a good option, with plenty of ground to cast your bino’s over from camp. As always with Westland tahr hunting but particularly with the Mahitahi, it really is a game of waiting for that right bull to make a mistake and step in to the right place where you can actually have a chance of retrieving him.

High in Uraroa Creek looking back down towards camp

Travel up and down the valley is pretty time consuming with a good mix of boulders and scrub to climb over, around and through. But really, it’s a matter of just waiting it out in the right place for that one bull you’ve picked out as being the oldest.

Same as it’s neighbouring valleys the helicopter pressure has pushed quite a population of tahr to now live in the bush, so be sure to do your bit and add a couple of nannies to the taxi ride home, meaning that next generation of bulls will do well with the extra tucker.

Chris undertaking a slightly sporty recovery

I know of a few nice bulls being taken in the mahitahi over the years, the last time I was in there we took a nice 8-9 year old bull that was 13 1/2 from memory. And if we all keep doing our bit to take a few nannies out, and let those bulls get some age, then we should see more going forward.  But really it’s about experiencing some time in that classic Westland tahr country, just be sure to be sure footed.

Originally produced for NZHunter Magazine - Grab a subscription here