We awoke early, to a misty morning in Mt. Cook Village, eager to reserve our space in the Mueller Hut by checking in at the iSite. We beat the rush and were first in line, along with a friendly girl from Ireland and soon our two little beads were moved on the abacus ensuring our bunks for the night. This would be the first of many occasions where a supposedly busy and/or crowded place in NZ standards turned out to be downright sleepy by American standards! Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park is of course dominated by the impressive Mt. Cook, New Zealand's tallest peak at 3,754 m (12,316 ft). But just as gorgeous is the braided river flowing down from the many waterfalls and glacial runnoff that cuts through the U shaped valley. The park actually reminded me a lot of Zion National Park, but I surmise that is because that is the only other major glacial valley I have hiked through.
The hike to Mueller Hut takes about 3.5 hours and ascends over 2000 m. We started strolling through the river valley, quickly stripping off our layers as realized how warm a day it was. The main route is broken up into two distinct parts, from the village to Sealy Tarns and then from Sealy Tarns to the ridge where the Hut sits. The first part is nearly all stairs (we passed a number of folks actually counting steps) heading steeply up through the jungle landscape. We we're left huffing and puffing as we claimed nearly vertically up, but there were more than enough vistas to warrant stops, and take our breath away figuratively too! It was nice knowing that we had ample time to get up to the hut, our only worry was making sure we rationed our water properly.
At the top of Sealy Tarns the vegetation stopped and we had a gorgeous view of Mt. Cook to the NE, Tasman Lake, Mueller Lake, and the Tasman River flowing south out the valley to Lake Pukaki. The second phase of the hike was more of a rock scramble, with the route demarcated by orange topped metal stakes driven in between the rocks. With about 300m left to go we encountered our first snow field. Since Rachel only had her sneakers on I lead the way, walking throug the deep snow in others footsteps as fast as possible. That was a tiring 100 feet or so uphill, but also invigorating to be hiking through snow in sunny 60 weather. As we rounded the top of the ridge we were faced with the most dramatic bowl and 2 glaciers in all their glory. There were small avalanches falling where the melt was strong, and many waterfalls too.
After one more quick scramble the hut came into view, we only had another big field of snow to cross. The higher we got the quicker the weather began to change. While it was still sunny out the wind was whipping up quite a bit, so any part of you that got wet was going to stay wet. The Westerlt clouds were constantly falling over the ridge so we were quite happy to seek shelter when we arrived a Mueller Hut. We most have been more tired than we realized because we both quickly fell asleep after laying out our sleeping bags on our bunk. When we awoke our Irish friend Adrienne had just returned from the summit of Mt. Olliver, 30 minutes further up the ridge. I was curious to check the bare ridge out, so scrambled up there to check out the view and take some photos while Rachel thawed out her feet. The group in the hut that night was a very friendly crew and we enjoyed great conversation with Adrienne as well as a couple of mates from Melbourne, Daniel and Ben. It's funny how you can share a bunk with 20 strangers you just met but everyone is friendly and helpful. Definitely restores your faith in humanity.
After a yummy dinner of hot dogs, baguette and cheese (and a great bottle of Shiraz) we were off to bed. I set my alarm for 3 am to check for stars per Jen & Adrienne's suggestion, but unfortunately it was a cloudy sky. I was more than happy to snuggle back up in my sleeping bag and drift back to sleep.
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