Wednesday 26th. Feb.

 

Mueller Hut Walk 1275 metres of very steep ascent 12.6km 7.5hours 

Another cloudless day in Aoraki/Mount Cook Village. Cool at 15˚C, but obviously going to warm up even at altitude, and a good supply of water added to rucksac, in order to climb to the Mueller Hut at 1800 metres.

Start out around 9.00am from the village at about 760 metres and walk the 2 km. on the flat through relatively sparse bush to the start of the climb. Looking ahead you can see no evidence of a track up the very steep hillside because it is completely smothered in head high bush.

 

 

It would be a shock to anyone to find that the first 500 metres is continuous well engineered wooden steps with gravel infill, and these are very steep “steeps” (steep steps for those of you who don’t already know the Kiwi pronunciation of step); in fact 500 metres of stairway steeper than my steeper than normal stairs at home is serious business.

 

  

After that the bush turns to grass and rock and the next 500 metres is still steep but eases off a bit.

A great viewpoint for Mount Cook and Mount Sefton from a convenient rock promontory, followed by a typically alpine rock track to the Mueller Hut at 1800 metres.

 

 

Feeling good and ahead of the guide time I went on up a very rocky (mostly large, angular and sharp) ridge to Mount Olivier at 1933 metres.

 

Looking down from Mount Olivier to Mount Cook Village and the Hermitage

 

Looking from Mount Olivier to Mount Cook

 

Then back down those steep steeps (Pat you would hate them)

 

 

Not a cloud in the sky all day and whilst relatively cool up top very warm on descent for a well earned cold drink and ice cream.

Saw a few Keas around the entrance to the Hermitage but they weren’t performing to expectations of the hoards of tourists trying to film them: being quite stand offish really.

The Hermitage despite its name is in fact a massive very swish multi story hotel complex, all glass and steel (a very tasteful dark grey: really, it works) . It is in its 5^th. reincarnation from the first small wooden hotel in the 1800s.

Aoraki/Mount Cook village is a very pleasant and tidy Alpine Village, small by comparison to most of those of the European Alps, but well spread out, interspersed with bush, and connecting roads and footpaths.

After my evening meal I went to the 3D cinema to see the Maori Legend of Mount Cook, its history in the hands of the immigrant community, and how it fits in to present day climbing, skiing, and tourist expectations. 3D was certainly an experience; the fly-bys of the mountain and the glaciers are quite stunning, and occasionally they threw something out of the screen and everybody ducked: in fact I think for a joke one of them was a duck.

Also went to see a more detailed, but none 3D film, about the climbing of Mount Cook past and present including Sir Ed. Hillary. It all looked pretty frighteningly impossible to me, but then one bloke skied down it with a camera: that looked even more impossible, and no room for error with massive drops and crevaces either side of very narrow steep route. And so to bed for nightmares of climbing and falling off the very steep, knife edged top of Mount Cook: not really: slept well after a day like that.