We hope you aren’t getting too tired of hearing about all our backpacking. We have one more hike we have to share about it. This one takes the cake of all of the hikes we have done and places we have seen in New Zealand. We have to agree with the Israeli gentleman we met on the Routeburn–the Mueller Hut and Mt. Cook rank as our numero uno for New Zealand. After seven beautiful days in the Fiordlands we knew we were pushing our luck to hope for another day of good weather, but the forecast looked decent and moved on to Aoraki/Mt. Cook.
Our expectation in arriving at the Mt. Cook National Park was to do a day hike up to the Mueller Hut and back as the budget is tight and it was going to be $70/pp to stay overnight. Upon talking to the Dept of Conservation the ranger said camping was an option but we’d be sleeping on the snow. We checked how cold it was going to be that night and figured our 15 degree sleeping bags could hold out for a night. Also, we knew New Zealanders wouldn’t leave someone out in the snow if they were in any real danger. We are getting pretty good at packing quickly and were ready to head up the mountain in about an hour.
Although this hike is only 5.6 km (just over 3 miles), it went up about 4000 vertical feet in that span which is one foot up for every five feet forward. Needless to say, this was our steepest climb yet.(and this after 6 of the past 7 days were spent hiking–are we crazy?!). If you have been to the Teton Mountains, this is our closest comparison. You drive right up to what seems like the base of the mountain which is just gigantic and firing up out of the ground. You feel quite small looking at these massive snow-covered peaks which are surrounding you. The mountains are so close you can hear and see the snow avalanches coming down every half hour or so. This is the opposite of watching a lightening storm–you hear the thundering sound of the snow falling first and then you look around to see the effects.
As we climbed higher and higher the view became better and better and our legs more and more tired. You climb up through scree and snow and after three hours of hiking finally come over the ridge to the best view yet. From there you follow the ridge, climbing over boulders to get to the hut, our final destination. The Mueller Hut has a huge deck that faces the mountains. Most folks arrive and hang out on the deck watching avalanches and the majestic scene in front of them. After setting up our tent and fixing dinner, we joined them (we were allowed to use the hut facilities until bed time), taking in the sunset and the entertainment of the kea bird (until it started attacking our tent at which time Erin hurled snowballs at it until it flew away).
Two of the highlights of this overnight hike (and really of all of our NZ travel) took place between 12:30am and 6am. The first was another midnight star gazing and photographing session. The full moon was pretty much lighting up the landscape. It was so still out it almost felt like you were on another planet–even our pictures look a little sci-fi. We spent about 45 minutes outside until our toes couldn’t take the cold any longer and we crawled back into our tent. Even with our four layers of clothing and 15 degree bags, we spent the next hour paying the price of being outside–it took us that long to warm up to go back to sleep. The second alarm went off at 5am beckoning us to watch the sunrise over the mountains. Wearily we climbed out of bed and hiked up to a point that we believe is Mt. Ollivier, Sir Edmund Hillary’s first summit. This was the best seat for sunrise.
Before packing up and walking down there was one more thing we needed to do: sledding. The hill behind the hut was ideal and we had the Glad Bag sleds necessary. We of last year’s Christmas in Colorado and sledding with our Newberg “family” at Snow Bunny and were really excited to have a little bit of winter in what is the beginning of summer for the southern hemisphere. It was our first and last winter experience until next winter. After four times up and down the hill we figured our legs had had enough and there were no friends or family to encourage us to take another run or join in a sledding train (a two person train isn’t quite the same) so we packed up, watched one more avalanche, and headed back to the car park.
We promise… this is the last hike we are going to talk about for awhile.
-
- snow avalanche
-
- view from the Mueller Hut deck
-
- snowball thrown at kea
-
- kea in flight
-
- view through our tent window
-
- moonrise
-
- Mt. Cook
-
- sunrise
-
- room with a view
-
- steep stairs down
-
- winter sledding
