Mount Cook - The Cloud Piercer
Posted by admin on May 24, 2005
If I should bow my head let it be to a high mountain.
Maori proverb.
And there is surely no mountain more worthy of being bowed to than Mount Cook, at 3,766 meters (12,349ft), the tallest peak in New Zealand.
Known to the Maori people as Aorangi, the Cloud Piercer, it was formed according to their legend, along with the surrounding peaks, by the grounding of the canoe of the ancient Maori explorers. Sailing on the great ocean of Kiwa (the Pacific), the grounded canoe became the South Island and Aorangi and his brothers were turned to stone and became the Southern Alps.
Mount Cook gives its name to a national park of nearly 70,000 hectares (170,000 acres) and boasts the most spectacular peaks and glaciers in the Southern Alps. The longest glacier is the Tasman at 28.9 kilometers (18 miles), followed by the Murchison at 17.7kms.
To the north in Westland National Park and skirted by the Pacific Ocean are the Fox Glacier at 15kms and the Franz Josef at 13.7kms.
These glaciers are the setting of what surely must be the most spectacular skiing in the world. On the Tasman for example all skiers are organized in groups of six to nine and are led by a professional guide. They fly from the Hermitage airfield at Mount Cook village with their skis strapped to the wing of the aircraft and after 15?20 minutes land near the Tasman saddle at 2,500 meters (7,725ft) above sea level. They then explore the longest ski run in the southern hemisphere, 12 kilometers (seven miles) of undulating bowls with both easy and demanding slopes, past ice falls and towering ice and snow formations.
The ski-plane’s retractable skis were the invention of Harry (later Sir Henry) Wigley, who piloted the little Auster Aiglet plane on the inaugural landing on the Tasman Glacier in 1955.
For non-skiers there are scenic flights in ski-planes around Mount Cook and Mount Tasman and, weather permitting, brief landings are made on the snowfields at the head of the glaciers.
Other activities offered by the park and surroundings include cross-country skiing, mountaineering, climbing, hunting (outside the park), rafting on the Tasman River, hiking and easy, sign-posted and guided walks.
An example of a hearty hike close to Mount Cook village is a two-hour trek up to Sealy Tarns. This is a steep, rough trail that climbs 500 meters up the Sealy Range to a group of scenic tarns (small mountain lakes) nestling in alpine meadows about halfway to the crest of the range. Rich gardens of herbs and alpine shrubs ease the sweat of the scramble up and the view from the tarns is ample reward for the effort. At the height of summer, the tarns can provide a tingling dip after a steep, hot climb.
For those with the time and energy to climb above the tarns the rewards are some of the finest views in the park. Stark mountains encircle the head of the Mueller Glacier. Mount Cook lords it over the northern horizon and Mount Sealy dominates the south. Between the two stretches the precipitous, ice-ribboned flank of the Main Divide, with subtropical rain forest meeting the Pacific to the west and the dry, tussocked-hills stretching to the Canterbury Plain to the east.
These slopes are prone to avalanche and the ridgecrest is exposed and subject to sudden changes in weather. Hikers venturing up here should be fit and well equipped with survival gear and protective clothing.
The grandeur of Mount Cook, the Cloud Piercer, draws visitors back to New Zealand like no other attraction.
Wrote Lord Byron:
“High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.”
Bruce Burnett, has won four Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold awards for travel journalism. Read more of Bruce Burnett’s writing on his websites:
1. globalramble.com/ globalramble.com/
2. bruceburnett.ca/ bruceburnett.ca/
3. herbalcuisine.com/ herbalcuisine.com/
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