Aoraki/ Mt. Cook

Kia Ora Everyone,

Well, the first week of class is in the books. It is early, but it appears that my "easy" semester might actually produce more work than I had anticipated, especially considering the fact that I plan to be gone/not doing schoolwork on weekends in order to see the country. It is looking like this might turn out to be a work hard/play hard sort of situation, which is fine by me. The good thing is that half of my classes focus on sports in business which, since you know me, is as interesting as it gets.

Last weekend was the first short trip of what I hope will fill as many weekends as possible while I am here. The destination was Mt. Cook, or Aoraki  ("cloud Piercer") in the Maori language. It is located in the heart of the Southern Alps, the country's most prominent mountain range. Mt. Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand, standing at 12,316 feet, and though plenty of mountains in Idaho and Colorado stand taller, I guarantee none are as large, and none as technical to climb. The mountain looks like something out of the Alps, dwarfing massive glaciers and dressed with huge cornices that frequently create avalanches due to the New Zealand weather patterns. It is also extremely windy.

The drive to Aoraki/ Mt. Cook National Park took about 4 hours, the first real test for our car... I suppose that maybe this would be a good time to introduce you to that car I mentioned wanting to find in the last post. After some looking, two friends and I found one that seemed to fit our needs. It is a 1992 Nissan Bluebird station wagon. It's a little rough around the edges, but judging by this trip, it should do just fine as long as it doesn't explode on us. I'm going to give it a (generous) 50/50 chance, not aided by the fact that it is a manual and we're driving on the other side of the road...

REQUIRED LORD OF THE RINGS NERD MOMENT: I apologize in advance. The drive took us through Twizel, a small town near the national park, and when we were picking up some last minute supplies at the general store, I saw some pictures at the cafe of the actors from the movies. The location was apparently their stay for most of the shooting of the Battle of Pelennor Fields scenes from the third film. I am starting to think that I will be running into this sort of thing often, which makes the inner geek in me extremely happy. END.

Our first night was spent at Lake Pukaki, just south of the mountains and what used to be the terminal moraine of the Tasman Glacier, the ice river credited with carving the valley sitting at Aoraki's foot. The years have seen it shrink just a little... The water here is tinged a crazy robin's egg blue, full of minerals from glacial runoff.

Saturday morning took us to the Hermitage, the departing point into the highest of the Southern Alps, and the home of the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Center. This was after all the man's training ground. From here, we left the car and began the climb up to the Mueller Hut. The hike was surprisingly grueling, climbing steep scrubland and turning into steeper scree-field. After gaining over 3,000 vertical feet in just under 2 miles, we made it to the hut. Exhausted, we set up camp on the edge of the cliff overlooking Mt. Cook. There was no way we were going to actually stay in the hut with the horde of other people who had made the trek. Not to mention the hut runs $30 a night, whereas camping is free. This made for a bad night of sleep on pure rock, but it was the overall coolest campsite of my life in terms of scenery.  Avalanches routinely thundered down the mountain faces not far from us, dumping tons of snow onto the glaciers lower in the valley. The scale of it all was absolutely incredible.

 After resting for a few hours, it was agreed that it was mandatory to climb up and tag the summit of Mt. Ollivier, the first summit Sir Edmund Hillary himself ever bagged. Really, really cool thing to have done when I think about it now. We also found edelweiss, known as the warrior's flower. It is an extremely rare plant that only grows in alpine zones, mainly the Alps. Saturday night provided by far the best sky I have seen thus far in NZ as well. The Milky Way was bright, arching across the sky through upside down Orion, the Southern Cross, and other constellations. Sitting there looking at the sky, hearing the occasional roar of an avalanche, does it get any better? On Sunday we got up before sunrise and watched the dawn creep over Mt. Cook, then packed up, climbed down to the car (which was actually worse than the hike up in my opinion) and drove back to Dunedin. I am still really tired, a little sore, and looking forward to whatever comes my way next.

Hope all is well, and I will post again in a few weeks, hopefully sharing two trips!
Cheers!