Key Summit

This walk offers spectacular views of Fiordland National Park. If you only have time for one walk on your drive to Milford Sound, and the weather is fine, this track is well worth the effort.

From The Divide carpark follow the Routeburn Track for about an hour to get to to Key Summit Track. From here it is a 20 minute climb to Key Summit, with panoramic views over the Humboldt and Darran Mountains.

A self guided alpine nature walk passes a range of native vegetation: beech forest, sub-alpine shrublands, alpine tarns and bogs. Birdlife is prolific and tomtits, robins, New Zealand pigeons and bellbirds are commonly seen.

During the last ice age, which ended about 14,000 years ago, a huge glacier flowed down the Hollyford Valley and overtopped Key Summit by 500m, with ice branches splitting off into the Eglinton and Greenstone Valleys.