Aoraki - Mount Cook, Hooker Valley Track, New Zealand, February 11, 2023

Aoraki/Mount Cook (12,218 ft) from about 30 miles away, as seen from the south end of Lake Pukaki (elevation 1,765 feet). Aoraki/Mount Cook is huge, rising over 10,000 feet above it’s valleys. In comparison, the Grand Teton rises only 7,000 feet above Jackson Hole. Lake Pukaki is massive, about 30 miles long and 5 miles wide, and, Like Lake Tekapo, its a moraine-damned lake, forming when receding glaciers from the last ice-age (15K years ago) left a deep valley with their terminal moraines damning the melt-waters. 

Mount Sefton (10,338 feet) from the Hooker Valley Track trailhead (2,490 feet). 

Mount Sefton (10,338 feet)

Mount Sefton (10,338 feet) from the Hooker Valley Track trailhead (2,490 feet). 

Lake Mueller and Mount Sefton, as seen at about milepost 1.5 on the Hooker Valley Track. Mueller Lake wasn’t here 100 years ago, rather, the Mueller Glacier, seen above, filled the valley where the lake now sits, with several hundred feet of ice. The barren lateral moraines above the lake show the depths of the glacial ice of the early 1900s. From where I was standing to take this photo, if it were 1923 the edge of the glacial ice would be about 50 feet away from my toes.

Aoraki/Mount Cook about two miles up the HookerValley Track. 

Aoraki/Mount Cook 

Aoraki/Mount Cook (12,218 ft) above Hooker Lake. The Hooker Glacier, at the far side of the lake, calves icebergs into Hooker Lake. The lower edges of the glacier are covered in dark scree, hastening the melting, but look closely and you can see the ice-cliff of the glacier running into the lake.  

Icebergs above our shoulders on Hooker Lake.

Aoraki/Mount Cook (12,218 ft) above Hooker Lake and icebergs on Hooker Lake.

Aoraki/Mount Cook (12,218 ft) 

Mount Sefton (10,338 feet)

Mount Sefton (10,338 feet)

Aoraki/Mount Cook (12,218 ft)

The Hooker Valley Track (trail) is an easy six mile round-trip walk, with barely a rise in elevation, up a glacial valley to Hooker Lake. It’s crowded, don’t expect solitude, and we were told by our landlady in Lake Tekapo that it’d be tough to find parking given that it’s mid-February, the height of New Zealand’s holiday season. I expected it to be similar to going to Zion or Arches National Parks in early August, but we pulled into the parking lot mid-day and immediately found several open spaces. No cruising the parking lot waiting for someone to leave. The trail was crowded, but not nearly as crowded as hiking Delicate Arch or Angels Landing in August. Compared to the USA, New Zealand is sparsely populated, it just does not get the crowds of the National Parks in Utah, or Wyoming.     

Climber memorials at the Hooker Valley Track trail head.