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The snow tells all
an introductory note So another week of work over and the prospect of my Tuesday / Wednesday weekend loomed ahead. As usual I was looking for something of interest to do and after talking to (the now swiftly departed on a whim) Jeff a few days before about the subject, I decided that Mount Cook could be a good plan. After looking up the weather advice on Tuesday for a trip on Wednesday, I decided it was definitely a good plan. Mount Cook is a strange beasty which only uncovers itself on rare occasions. Indeed, I’d spoken to a fellow at one point in the north island who said he’d stayed at Mount Cook for a whole week, during which time he’d seen nothing but cloud. Being the highest thing in an area bombarded with moist weather moving in from the west coast it tends to get a bit cloudy. However, not on Wednesday last, as luck would have it. My day off would coincide with an absolute peach of a day.
Packing my bags the evening before and preparing a lunch of cold pizza and cheese & avocado sandwiches for the long drive, I set myself an early alarm call of 6am
Drive through the mist
gibbston valley looks haunting and went to bed. Not though before finally servicing Frank. Myself and Claire had been horrified in early April when he wouldn’t start due to running out of petrol, and horror turned to disgust as we realized we’d neglected him since then and not driven him at all. Mission refill was therefore engaged and after an amusing trek to a garage to get a petrol tank and taking it back to Frank, he was finally ready to go again. Don’t worry folks we’ll look after him from now on.
Next morning 9am came (6 was always going to be optimistic...come on) and I quickly rose to set off on the supposed 3-4 hour road trip to Aoraki (Maori name) / Mount Cook (that given by Captain J.L. Stokes of the navy who named it after Captain Cook in 1851). In the event the journey took 3 hours, and I must say it was as fine a drive as you could wish for. Almost as soon as I left Queenstown and motored through the Gibbston Wine Valley I was treated to all the vineyards having a low layer of mist hanging from them creating a white blanket across all I
could see before me. Then after a windy section of road through a stunning gorge, I emerged into a enormous valley, with me at one end and mighty snow clad mountains 150km in the distance. Somewhere in there was Mt Cook. Thus, an hour or so later after passing through the delightfully named ‘Twizel’, I reached my turning and was told that in 55km time I would be meeting the highest mountain in the Australasia. After passing the famous Mt Cook airfield I trundled into Mt Cook village at 12.30pm, eager to look around the visitors centre and choose one of the many short walks around the Mt Cook National park.
I’d been looking forward to going to Mt Cook since we got to NZ, and I’m not sure why I haven’t gone before. I suppose it doesn’t do itself any favours being located miles from anywhere. The visitors centre was part of the draw, and I spent a happy while reading all the information on the wall about various summit attempts, from the doomed first climb in 1882 by Rev. W.S. Green, to the first success by Kiwi team Tom Fyfe, Jack Clarke and George Graham in 1894.
first glimpse
one of the mant photos of me with my mountain I also leafed through the very moving memorial books, chronicling all the fatalities (149) in modern times. Scarily these included not only unlucky novices but a fair number of very experienced climbers. The trouble with Cook is the weather, and as much as any mountain in the world conditions can transform in a matter of minutes, changing a jolly jaunt in the sun, into a treacherous snow storm escape.
Today though I was lucky, conditions were very unlikely to do anything too nasty, and so I headed out on a 3-4 hour return walk to Hooker Lake at the base of the mountain. No climbing just great views I was assured.
This was an understatement. The sun blazed down, there was nay a could in the sky, but for one persistent guy on the very summit of the mountain, and I could see for miles and miles and miles. On a day like that photos seemed to be the order of the day, and I took…a lot! Still, they only have a handful of days as clear in a year I was told so I felt only right to snap away.
The walk started from the visitors
centre and was first along 3km of road I had just driven down to get to a turning. Groaning, I set off but was quickly picked up by a nice chap in a car who took me to the start of the walk proper. He told me he was a chef at the Hermitage (Mt Cook’s famous and only hotel) and was flyering at the car park down the track. Not entirely sure the reasoning behind this as he had literally no competition and anyone staying around for dinner was sort of obliged to use him.
Anywho, I was glad of the lift and on arrival at the White Horse Hill carpark (site of the original Hermitage until a nasty flood decimated it in the early 1900s) I set off into a snowy wilderness where the track was mostly ankle deep and at times more. First I passed the poignant alpine memorial which from one angle stood in perfect line with the summit of the mountain, and then onwards to a walk beside Mueller lake (ice berg clad!) and two swing bridges crossing the fiercely cold Hook River. Finally it wound through more deep snow to a Stocking Shelter
Mt Cook
Looking jolly good in the sun (one of the last rest shelters before brave types tackle the actual mountain) and finally the Hooker Glacier terminal lake. Again there were ice bergs aplenty breaking from the glacier and tones of snow for me to act way below my age with.
Mt Cook itself stood 3754m high in front of me and completely dominated everything in the area. The magnificent alpine scenery has been formed by a combination of uplift and erosion, with mountain building beginning on the east side of a fault line 2 million years ago. It now uplifts around 10mm per year, with erosion keeping it relatively balanced. Given there are only usually 21 recorded days of snow per year I was very lucky to see it completely blanketed in white while bathed in sunshine at the same time. The previous few days had been a white out as the snow fell, and in a few days it would either be melted or lost in the cloud again.
Many pictures later and it was time to hike back to Frank and a 3 hour drive home in the dark. I was treated to many wonderful scenes of mountains during sunset and found Dark
Marc and Mt Cook
Both looking jolly good in the sun Side of the Moon provided a fitting soundtrack. Dark blues, crimson reds all contrasted with forest greenery and all kinds of greys and browns from the hills giving a crazy tapestry.
All in all I was very taken with Mount Cook. Despite not doing a great deal of alpine climbing, as a regular climber and fells person it was easy to appreciate that the mountain was very special. Rather than being one of many peaks in a long line such as the Himalayas, it stands out on it’s own as a proper shaped, good old fashioned mountain like you’d draw at school. Also from a boy-with-toys point of view it was able to transport me straight into a James Bond film and twas also massive, and just as at the Petronas towers in Malaysia, I was fascinated by its bigness.
I was back at the Hippo for 8pm happy with a good mission from the day off. Work beckoned the next day so I got an early night.
Oh yeah also this week i purchased the new Flaming Lips album this week, if you dont own it remedy the situation it's awesome - this mainly applies to
younger types who dig wierd psychadelic rock music.
toodle pip.
marc
x
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terry and mick's bandwagon of joy
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True grit
Just to echo that the new lips album rocks in a very middle aged psychadelic deli type way, well done the lads. Good to see its made its way to NZ. Sounds like its getting a wee bit chilly down sounth. No such trouble in blighty, its lovely and warm. Although it has been raining for about 2 weeks solid, so I've had 38 BBQs to celebrate. ARgle