Mt Cook Village - The Mueller hut track
Finally we reached Mt Cook. The village itself is set in a beautiful valley. We arrived there, and went straight up to the Mueller Hut track (It was midday, but the lady in the DOC office just made us go, she said we can't miss the good weather). It turned out that the week before we came it was snowing heavily up in the mountains. The last part of the track, we had to walk in Knee-Deep snow. It was hard, but the views were amazing. I think the Mueller hut was the most beautiful spot on this trip. Basically it's a two day track - you go up 4 hours, stay the night and go down. You can do it easily in one day, but the hut is really nice, and it's cool it to spend the night there. All the other guys up there beside me and gal were real mountaineers - with all the ice picks and crampons and stuff.
| Beginning the climb - this is the Hooker valley from above. |
| The Mt Cook village, from above. |
| This is the Hooker Valley, again. It looks quite nice from up here! |
| The beginning of the snow field. |
| Approaching the hut. |
| Me again, just a cool photo. |
| Nothing but snow. |
| Beside the Mueller hut! |
| Well, it doesn't look like much, but believe me,
it's a great hut. |
| The DOC sure knows how to make a tramper feel safe. |
| Gal (in his infinite wisdom) didn't bring any gloves.
So on the way down, he fixed himself some home-made gloves (that red thing is my
raincoat pouch!). Gal also has the most pathetic of rain coats ever - a Coca Cola
jacket he got for free (Aw, geez, he was a walking advertisement). I spent around
300NZD (Katmandu summer sale) on my extra-cool Gortex coat. (And have yet to find a real difference between them) |
| Going down on the snow field.
I may look cool, but basically we just slid down (on our butts...). Talk about fun! |
| Well, you cannot have too many pictures of me in snow. |
|
Again, the hooker valley from above. |
Mt Cook Village - short walks
Right after we finished the track, we went to see the Tasman
valley glacier. I thought it wasn't an exciting place, I don't even have one picture
of it. Just an ugly lake. The next day we went to see the Hooker valley, which was
quite nice. All in all, the Mt Cook village was great - but mainly because of the
Mueller hut track (And also because of the great meal we had at the Harmitage buffet lunch deal. Mmmmm!)
|
Finally, a good picture of Mt Cook. That's on the way to the
hooker valley (and don't ask me why they named it hooker! Gal had several
theories, but that's not the place to tell them)
|
| The lake at the Hooker Valley, with Mt Cook in the background. |
| I found a really good spot near the lake. Look at all
the ice floating! neat. |