Aoraki / Mount Cook

- new photos up from Aoraki/Mount Cook at http://www.flickr.com/photos/36524197@N08/
-  this chocolate is DELICIOUS

Clouds starting to climb up higher

Hello!

I've got free unlimited wifi here, so you get lots of pictures (more on flickr). :)

Stars starting to appear over the Mueller
Glacier

Yesterday I arrived at Mount Cook (Aoraki by its pre-European name). Beautiful area, and lucky for me, beautiful weather! Last night was super clear and not too chilly, and the lights of the tiny village aren't enough to dim the stars too badly.

View of the hostel this morning.
Not bad, not bad. ;)

This morning was similarly crystal clear, so after sneaking out of the dorm (okay, I use the term sneak since all of us in there tried to either sneak in late, or sneak out early, or sneak out in the middle of the night to find the loo, but the DOOR has other ideas... it is very loud. Creaking. Thunking. The poor person right by the door haha. But that's the only bad thing about this lovely hostel, so it really isn't a big deal.

Tuck in the parking lot... look veeeerrrrry
closely at the roof...

Its just why I was "sneaking"), it was off to the trail head of the Mueller Hut route. The trail, which is just over 5 km long, goes up to one of the DOC's overnight huts at about 1800m. The first half of the trail leads to some tarns; wide and well maintained, it has nearly 2000 steps built into the trail (the DOC guy said how many. I forgot. Oops. 1800 something. I think there was a 6 in there somewhere... maybe 1863? Not important.) From there the track becomes more like a regular hiking trail, eventually being marked out by posts along a boulder field leading up to the hut.


It wasn't long before it started getting pretty warm, but then (right on que), the clouds wafted in from the valley floor. So most of the hike up was nice and cool, though the trail eventually broke over the clouds to make for a marvellous view of the surrounding valley.

Clouds starting to form in the valley

The leading group of racers disappearing
down into the clouds

Today was the first day of a 5-7 day adventure race, where about 25 teams bike, trek, and paddle their way from the other side of Mount Cook all the way to Queenstown. The leaders of the pack were running down the side of the mountain on my way up, while I walked down with a group from California (and one Kiwi :p ).

One of the Sealy Tarns on the way
down.

Just over an hour brought me to the Sealy Tarns - which could possibly have held nice reflections if it hadn't been for the clouds (but its okay, the clouds burned off by the time I hit that point on the way down :p), while just under 3 hours brought me to the Mueller Hut itself.

View of Mount Cook from the Mueller Track

Two avalanches coming off of the Mueller
Glacier. There were almost constant little
ones, and big ones would cascade every 10 min
or so - sounded like airplanes!

The two friendly DOC staff manning the hut had just finished cleaning the outhouse when another of the race teams came through - following some friendly banter, one of the racers declared the outhouse the "highlight of her year." I chuckled.

Mt Cook from above the clouds

An hour and half brought me back to the parking lot, where Tuck was sitting right where I left him. ;) Such a well-behaved little car.

On a completely unrelated side note, I don't think I've commented on the absurd names given not only to the bridges over little creeks, but also to culverts! (Yep. The culverts get names. And little signs on posts on the side of the highway displaying said names). There was "Imp's Grotto", and "Big Deep Creek" (also "Little Deep Creek" right next to it), just to name a few.

10 points to the first person who can find
Tuck!

 Hokey Pokey Whittaker chocolate. SO good. May have to buy large quantities and haul home...

Also formatting in this editor is not so fun, so I'm afraid you will just have to deal with large white spaces and strangely placed paragraphs. :)