Aoraki/Mount Cook NP
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Mueller Hut Track Aoraki/Mount Cook NP |
March 12, 2017
As anticipated, the clouds are hanging low here again in Mount Cook Village. Dave and I head back to the great DOC Visitor Centre for some more reading. It's all about mountain climbing here, of course; and this is easily the best museum I have seen on that topic.
This must be the brochure that convinced Dave to come here
I watch a video on how to ice-climb, and see an avalanche dog at work (sniffing out trapped climbers). Dave watches a rescue operation in which they extracted a climber with two broken legs and got him to a hospital, only to have him die there. That was somewhat unusual in that the general rule is: If he's still alive when you get him out of the crevasse, he probably will survive.
Museum photographs
The Kea is the world's only alpine parrot
The only trails available to us today are in this area;
so we head back to the Hooker Valley Trailhead, which
also is the Mueller Hut Trailhead. That's
right — the same one that we didn't attempt
yesterday because we wanted to live to hike again.
Where we are
Sand-myrtle
Hare's-Foot Clover
A long series of stairsteps commences. Dave
knew about them; but apparently I had not read that part
of the brochure. The Sealy Tarns are above us
somewhere, and getting there is touted as just a
three-hour round-trip effort; but Dave and
I know better than that. Also, there are a reputed
2,200 steps overall, meaning that the trail is horrendously
steep. We certainly need the workout, though.
Every journey begins with a single step
Most of the stairs are beautifully constructed of planks and gravel;
they are thin enough in places, however, that hand-over-hand
climbing is the easiest way to go at times.
As yesterday, there is not much to see
We were on the other side of Mueller Lake yesterday
That's encouraging
We're not the only ones struggling
The clouds swirl about us, clearing just enough for a partial view now and then.
There's the parking lot down below
There's the Mueller Glacier up above
The view is a bit better now
This is really difficult — climb a couple dozen steps, rest,
repeat. Finally I decide to pack it in at the thousand-foot mark,
which probably is about halfway up the slope.
Note the nifty lakes within the lake
Descending is no cakewalk either; for neither Dave nor I
bothered to bring along our walking sticks. Negotiating
wet stairs and intermittent wet rock requires extra care.
My legs are rubbery from all the down-climbing;
so once again the routine is: do a couple dozen stairs, rest, repeat.
It's clearing up slightly
The view gets better
Finally back at the bottom of the incline, my GPS says that we have descended 770 feet in just over a quarter of a mile. No wonder it was so difficult going up!
It shouldn't be long now
Near the end, we take an unplanned mile-long detour
back toward the village; but that is okay. At the car an
elderly Japanese man hands me a map, looking for directions to
the Hooker Valley Trail; and I actually am able to accommodate him!
We didn't do this boardwalk earlier
At the trailhead, this guy prepares a fancy meal
§: Well, I cannot recommend doing this in the rain;
but it was for me a one-of-a-kind experience.
If aerobics is your goal, this is the place.
| Scenery |  |
| Difficulty |  |
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| Solitude |  |
