A proposal to reconfigure a section of the Around the Mountains trail that a proponent says would avoid a looming Environment Court battle has previously been ruled out by the Southland District Council.
This month, one section in the second stage of the trail, through the upper Oreti River and the Oreti fishery, will be argued in court after consent was appealed by Fish & Game New Zealand.
However, former Lawrence farmer Roger Hodgkinson, now living in Te Anau, believed he had a solution - a second trail following the Around the Mountains Trail from Walter Peak and Mt Nicholas but ultimately linking to Te Anau.
If the primary trail were slightly reconfigured to run through Mavora, that would potentially remove the need for a court hearing.
Under Mr Hodgkinson's proposal, cyclists could choose to branch off to Te Anau at the Centre Hill intersection or continue on the Around the Mountains trail.
However, Southland District Council chief executive Steve Ruru said the proposed route, and several others, were considered by the council before consents were lodged and was ruled out.
"The options of going up the Mavora Valley rather than the Oreti have been looked at in quite some depth by the council as part of the consenting process with Fish & Game. Fish & Game have come up with different options and we've evaluated all of those and still ended up saying 'no, those options are not particularly viable and we need to pursue the Oreti'.
"We've ruled out the options of going up the Mavora Valley.''
It is understood that is largely due to safety concerns, with parts of the trail higher than the snowline.
Mr Ruru said while the council had not ruled out linking the Around the Mountains trail with Te Anau, the priority was to get the primary trail completed first before a separate process was started to create linking trails.
The Environment Court hearing about the Upper Oreti section of the trail is scheduled to begin on February 15.
