Mt Erebus + Deadmans Track

Google only finds one mount erebus and Im sure you dont mean that one as it will be shrouded in darkness for the next 6 months. Also quite hard to get to. Google found many deadmans tracks

deadmans track is maintained infrequently... depends what the last storm did to it, its a pretty basic track at the best of times.

I, too, am a little confused. I assume you're referring to Deadmans Track just past Gunns Camp off Hollyford Road? If so, ain't no Mount Erebus there. Might you be referring to Mount Xenicus up the Valley of the Trolls?

Sorry should have clarified. Deadman's track beginning past Gunns Camp and finishing at the Routeburn Track. Mt Erebus is the next peak North of Mt Xenicus, standing at 1978 and accessed via the Valley of the Trolls. Is clearly marked on every map I've seen.

Oy! There it is, plain as day~ I'm imagining your approach would be up the creek to the east of the Lake Wilson drainage creek to reach the saddle between points 1821 and 1829, then summiting Erebus from there?

@Gregor, yea that the route I was thinking of.

I haven't done Deadman's (it got clobbered in the February 2020 storm along with everything else in the area and I don't know if much was done on it afterwards) but I have done Erebus a couple of times, most recently this past January. This picture is from early in the season a number of years ago but still mostly holds true: https://tramper.nz/8515/routes-up-mt-erebus/ When are you thinking of doing it? Based on current late March snow conditions (i.e. its almost all gone currently except for the southeast corner on the North Routeburn side) its probably easiest to go up via a combination of the red and blue lines (in the photo where the red goes up to the left and then straightens more upwards, just keep going up to the left instead). Having come done the blue route in January it goes directly to the summit from near Pt1578. Steep but straight forward. There's a bit of faffing around on the green route on the main ridge line and you need to cross steep snow slopes. There's also a route that goes up to the north of Erebus hitting the main ridgeline north of the summit, but we didn't see an obvious final part of the route from the ridgeline to the summit so ended up traversing south on the North Routeburn side of the ridge and summited from the southeast corner up the permanent snow slopes. From Harris Saddle if you're fit with a light day bag you're looking at about 2 hours to Pt1578, and then 1-2 hours up to the summit... would be my guess. Going up the green route would be more like 2-3 hours, and you'd want an ice axe. I'd strongly suggest a helmet too, whichever route you take, there's a lot of loose rock up there.

I came down Deadmans Track in April last year. It was in pretty good condition, I met a couple of DOC guys at the top who had just gone bottom to top with a scrub bar and cleared it nicely. It took me 3 hours from leaving the Routeburn Track down to the road. Had a heavyish pack on, 12 days food and packraft. Heavy rain, progressing to thunderstorming by the time I reached the bottom when I did it. Plenty of orange markers, no problems staying on route. They have a stoat trap line all the way down the track, so DOC mammal murderers are presumably going up and down there reasonably frequently and keeping it open. I'd guess 4-5 hours going up would be reasonable, daytripping and going fast, you might be quicker than that. Talking to them and other biodiversity staff, there is another trap line/track down from Conical Hill to near the Hollyford Airstrip, head up Conical Hill from Harris Saddle, sidle around once you reach the top of the wooden steps and you'll pick up track markers that will take you right down to the Hollyford Airstrip was what I was told, but I haven't had a chance to check it out.