Aoraki Mount Cook, 3724 m, is the highest peak in New Zealand and lost about ten metres of summit in a rock avalanche in 1991. It stands in a park with more than twenty peaks above 3000 m and glaciers covering forty percent of the surface. The Maori name means cloud piercer, and Ngai Tahu regard the mountain as an ancestor.
The Hooker Valley Track
The best short walk in New Zealand is ten kilometres return, almost flat, on boardwalk and gravel, crossing three swing bridges to a terminal lake where icebergs from the Hooker Glacier drift in front of the mountain. It takes about three hours and is manageable by almost anyone. Go early or late; midday in summer brings crowds and flat light.
Tasman Glacier
The largest glacier in the country is 23 km long and has retreated dramatically since the 1970s, leaving a proglacial lake that did not exist fifty years ago and now measures seven kilometres. Boat trips take visitors among the icebergs. The Tasman Glacier View walk is a twenty-minute climb from the road end.
Mueller Hut
For a full day and real effort, the climb to Mueller Hut is 1050 m of ascent over five kilometres of steps and boulder field, ending at a red hut on a ridge at 1800 m surrounded by Mount Sefton and the Footstool. Avalanches can be heard through the night. Book the hut ahead in summer; in winter it is an alpine undertaking.
Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo
The lakes below the park owe their colour to rock flour, glacial silt so fine it stays in suspension and scatters light. Lake Pukaki looks straight up the valley to Aoraki. At Tekapo, the tiny stone Church of the Good Shepherd from 1935 has become the most photographed building in New Zealand, and in November and December the introduced Russell lupins flower purple and pink along the shore — beautiful, invasive, and a genuine problem for braided-river birds.
Dark skies
The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve covers 4300 square kilometres and was the first in the southern hemisphere. Lighting is regulated across the basin. The Mount John Observatory above Tekapo runs night tours, and on a clear moonless night the Magellanic Clouds and the galactic core are visible to the naked eye.
Practicalities
Mount Cook Village is 55 km off State Highway 8 down a dead-end road and has a hotel, a lodge, a hostel and a campsite — nothing else, and no fuel. Book ahead in summer. Twizel, 65 km away, is the practical alternative. The park has no supermarket; bring food.