Day 59, Mount Cook Hike

Before I knew it, we were leaving Queenstown.  Honestly, you could vacation here for a week and still not do everything that this little town had to offer. Lucky for us the good weather continued as we went on our way to Mount Cook.

It's weird to think two days ago I was directly under where the sun was shining over the mountain, time goes by fast.

A scenic drive; passed a couple of lakes.  I don't have any stories really today because the bus driver we had that day would rather listen to music.  Not that I had a problem with it because he had good taste: Foo fighters, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin.  So I wasn't complaining.  Some girls were but whatever.

The one thing I found interesting about this drive was the region had more hills than mountains.  In these hills there were rivets of bare spots.  I don't think it was due to water or glacial impact.  It had me wondering what was the cause for the lines running vertically on the hill.

Anybody recognize this rock formation????? Pretty famous movie....

This is the Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake.  I mentioned before why must of the streams and water is blue.  I will mention it once again though.  As glaciers melt and grind away at the mountain, minerals are discharged into the water.  When the sun hits the water, the mineral distorts the light creating the blue color.  Rather pretty effect don't you think?

Although barren and dry at the moment, when the season is transitioning from winter to spring, this riverbed will be full and flowing.

 

When we got there, it was already 2 oclock and by the time we got settled it was 3 oclock.  So in our mini race against time we headed straight for the glacier.  We were going to push forward with disregard for the designated trail.  A straight path is always quickest!  We headed straight for the green hill in the forefront to get a great vantage viewpoint for pictures!  The valley we are crossing is named Hooker Valley, I am hoping it is named after an explorer.  Another note about that yellow grass; it is so long and thick that when you walk on it, you feel like you're walking on cushions because your feet sink in about six inches with each step.  It's really nerve racking at first haha.

We were WRONG! A straight path is not the quickest way to where we were trying to go! Our first obstactles were these low lying shrubs that you could not walk over nor under so we had to zig zag anyway to start climbing the hill. On a more educational note, the peak you see there is Mount Wakefield.

Eventually, it was time to get on our hands and knees as once we reached the top of that hill, there was another hill behind it that was blocking our view.  So again, we had to forge our own path down the hill to climb the next one. I was chosen as leader because I had the most of my body covered with clothing so I could be the test dummy when hacking my way though.

So after an hour and a half of hiking we made it to this spot.  The peak on the left is Mount Sefton. The next peak over is Mount Footstool.  In the forefront is the Mueller Glacier Lake.

The little black dot in the forefront is me.  Cecilia was nice enough to say at the spot where the previous picture had been taken; to capture how high up we were.  Where I was standing I could get a full view of Mount Cook.

The main event, ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, MOOOUUUNNNTTT COOOOOKK.  It really was an impressive sight.  I later found out that the entire mountain range, valley, and lakes were part of Aoraki Mount Cook National Park which is also a world heritage site.  The same principles of Milford Sound apply here as well.   The little peak to the left is Mount Hicks by the way.

Not wanting to claw and scratch our way down this one, we walked along the peak till we found a spot where we could actually get down easier.  Boy, did we find a fun path!

Ironically, when we had finished our shinanigans, we stumbled across this sign.  Hey, adding a little element of danger makes things fun.  To be honest, where we were wasn't that dangerous at all, but we got a kick out of the sign.

Judging by the size of the bolders (not rocks), this valley is still relatively young in terms of glacier melting. The landscape is littered with rocks this size which shows that the grass and roots and soil have not had time to firmly conform to the rocks that are the base of the valley.  It is a very uneven surface which would have made farming literally impossible in this region, especially having to remove all the bolders from your farming area.  The other places I saw that had glaciers previously were much less rocky or the rocks had been worn and broken.  Very similar to the picture that I showed you guys above that was a river rock bed.  It is also weird to think that at one point these rocks were not crumbled but were one solid piece that was a mountain.

The majority of our time had been spent up high so we decided to check out what it would look like from down low.  From this perspective, The mountain looks more menacing in a sense, especially with the rapids in front. Very intimidating.

This time, we traversed along the side of the river and lake.  It was fun until the sun started to set and we had to get back to the top.  Well, let's just say we had a real tough time getting back up.  It was nerve racking to say the least.

As you can see from this photo, we made it and lived.  The sun had gone behind the mountains so we were fortunate enough to have beat trying to find our way back up in the night. I was really happy about it.

This was as far as we made it.  We had walked 6 kilometers to get to this point or a bit over 4 miles.  We watched as the sun set on Mount Cook, it was a beautiful.  However, we also had to walk the 4 miles back to our hotel.  In order to do this, we were smart enough to have packed a torch aka flashlight. We saw a brush possum on the way back.  Had to cross two swing bridges and walk along the edge of a cliff while in the dark.  The end justifies the means though because as we walked back we saw a sky filled with stars.  There were no cities, no car headlights, no camp fires where we were.  Try to imagine this:  Thousands upon thousands of stars bright enough to reflect off the snow-capped mountains.  Orien's Belt was over top of Mount Cook which pointed directly towards the milky way over top of us.  I have never seen so many stars in my life. Simple amazing.