Unexplored Fiordland Valleys

Bound to be some small ones

On a 54 day trip there we made 2 navigation errors and I'm sure no one else had gone that way! There were very few signs of other people having been on our route: 2 cairns, 1 rock wall built for sheltering the tent I guess, 1 chain, and an ingenious table with insert for a tub to do the dishes in, in the Stillwater.

I remember a story about 6 or 8 years ago in wilderness magazine. This guy had dropped into an unnamed stream valley and camped 200 meters from the stream. What he didnt know was that the stream went through a very narrow gorge just out of sight from his camp. It rained a lot that night and the first he knew was that squelchy feeling By the time he grabbed very little stuff and high tailed it up the side of the valley his tent was under water. He did put a suggestion to the geographical board to name the valley pitsoak creek

There must be parts of some valleys/side valleys that no one has set foot in, but I think there would be fewer than people think. People like Stan and Tara Mulvaney, Henriette Beikirch, Danilo Hegg, Robin McNeill and others have spent an enormous amount of time and energy in Fiordland. Most of the tops would have been covered by helicopter and then walk when the wildlife service were looking for remanent Kakapo populations. Lots of places would have been covered by hunters flying in and then camping and hunting the side valleys from their camp. I just got back from [three weeks in the Precipice Cove/Museum Range area](https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B1653qWtHIt5key), we put out listening devices for SI Kokako in the Rum, Misty and Camelot Rivers, then did a trip up onto the [southern Museum Range, Mt Patanga](https://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap?v=2&ll=-45.276336,167.239294&z=13). The Camelot has a trapline up it, but no sign of people in the Rum or Misty until we got quite a way up the Misty River tributary that leads towards Mt Patanga, where we found evidence of a hunters camp up there and some old blazes on trees. The thing is, it would be impossible to know if you were in a valley that no one had explored before you, so much is un-documented.