Wilkie Firebreak

Hutt Valley, Wellington, New Zealand

Extremely steep firebreak from Mount Ken down a ridge to Wilkie Cresent in Naenae.

Advanced

Bike and Foot

The track starts with a short climb up from Mount Ken on an S-bend corner.

Then the fun begins. Overall the firebreak drops 320m in 1.5km, for an average gradient of 21%. The upper sections are the steepest, with two in particular having gradients of around 40% and 45% respectively. Combining the steep slope with a tricky surface - deeply rutted in between smooth dirt covered in fine rock marbles - makes for a very challenging descent.

The middle section is relatively gentle, with an average gradient of around 12-15%. Then the last down hill section has a gradient of around 25%, ending with a great berm that sweeps around a sharp corner to the left (though watch out for the bump on the exit).

Following that berm, there is a flatish section that ends with a pair of steel gates either side of the empty section where the track finishes.

Branches off Mount Ken, 0.6km north of where Mount Ken branches off ECNZ pylon road, which is itself almost 0.6km north of the communications tower were Wainui Centre branches off ECNZ pylon road.

Ends at an empty section between 31 and 37 Wilkie Cresent.

Just after a fire-fighting pond there is another fire break that drops off towards the north (right-hand side when heading down). It appears to be a dead-end, stopping behind the houses on Waddington Drive.

1.96km

Double track

1 Jan 2010 by Ian

Ian