Mount Cook - Hooker Valley

The next day, we took the Hooker Valley***** track, 3 hrs return...All tracks are 5* at Mt Cook =D so beautiful.. This is quite an easy walk, there are two swing bridge crossing the Hooker river on the track. The view is really good along the track and so many Mount Cook lily growing all around, the largest buttercup in the world. At the end of our walk, there are floating ice on the Hooker glacier terminal Lake. How cool!

Mount Cook Lily

Super windy!!

Well not a rather clear day to see Mt Cook's peak. We walk further up beyond the track to get a closer look at the Hooker glacier and moraines, well everyone does that. But we can see that the track is not safe, rockfall area! Right after we are planning to return, the wind just picked up. Gosh its so windy!

Since the forecast for today is not too good, with rain and cloud coming in the afternoon, we are lucky to finish our walk around noon time. we had a real 'exciting' moments crossing the swing bridge (above) on the way back. The wind just push us as we cross, pam pam pam! The wind blowing strong in the valley.. We have to hold on to the hand rails securely! Someone got their hat blown off too!

Sir Edmund Hillary 

After the nice 'where is Mt Cook' walk, we spend the rest of our afternoon at the DOC info center, browsing all the interesting information about this tallest mountain of NZ. At 3746 metres, covered with snow all year round, many people have tried climbing this mountain. Including the famous Sir Edmund Hillary, the first men to climb the Everest. He actually trained himself at this mountain before attempting the Everest which is 8848metres high! Sir Edmund is 'printed' on the five dollar NZ notes. The part of track 40m before the summit,  large crack between the cornish and rock is named as Hillary Steps, after his successful climb up, followed by his companion, Tenzing Norgay... The legendary Kiwi died at the age of 88, leaving behind many other notable achievements like crossing the Antartica, the first men to reach south pole and north pole.....

There around 200 people dating back to 1912 who died in attempt to climb Mount Cook. We really pay our respect to people who climbed the mountain back in the old days since 1890s. Just imagine climbing this snowy mountain, with avalanche risk, no tracks, no waterproof gear, no proper equipments. There are more than 22 peaks around Mt Cook area that are more than 3000metres.

In December 1991, an avalanche happened suddenly at the summit of Mt Cook at midnight, decreasing 10metres in height (originally 3764m). At Twizel, a town nearby, recorded a magnited of 3.9 from the fall which lasted for 1++ minutes.

Stay strong... Little ducklings trying to beat the strong wind.. Heee cuteee..

The gust (strong wind) is even crazier in the evening! At the time of writing this, we are hiding inside our van, while our van is moving, as in shaking from the wind. OMG it is so scary!! And its raining heavily! We just pity the people who had to sleep under the tent! Their tent is still intact but they won't have a good night sleep if it continues like that for sure. And more so, the people who are climbing Mt Cook,well think no one will attempt the climb if the forecast is not good.

The next morning, we asked the info centre and the gust yesterday were about 80 km/hr!