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Home » Adventures » New Zealand Extended Holiday » Mount Cook NP

Mount Cook National Park

December 15 – 16, 2012
Route I Walked15 km

Route I Walked
15 km

This national park was a stunning area, with mountains rising over a thousand meters straight up from the valley floor and glaciers covering the high slopes. The park offers more mountaineering options than tramping ones, but I still enjoyed the usual day hikes in the Mount Cook Village area. I also made an overnight trek to Ball Hut. Its views of the tail end of the Tasman Glacier were amazing — the snow sheet several kilometers wide and the hole left behind a hundred meters deep. I scrambled up Ball Ridge, climbing up some steep and loose rock until I hit snow fields. There I had some spectacular view of Mount Cook and the surrounding mountains on a beautifully clear day.

View of the Southern Alps behind Mueller Lake
Upper parts of the Hooker River
Looking across Tasman Glacier, near sunset
Myself atop Ball Ridge, with Mt. Cook in the background
Looking up Tasman Glacier