Aoraki / Mount Cook

Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, rises to 3,724 metres in the Southern Alps, the range that runs the length of the South Island. It has three summits in a long, almost level ridge, Low Peak, Middle Peak and High Peak, which give the mountain a distinctive blocky profile seen from east or west. The Tasman Glacier flows down its eastern side and the Hooker Glacier lies to the south-west; the surrounding national park, established in 1953, has more than 140 peaks over 2,000 metres and 72 named glaciers, and together with three neighbouring national parks forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Aoraki is the mountain's name in the tradition of Ngāi Tahu, in which an early name for the South Island means Aoraki's canoe. The English name was given in 1851 by Captain John Lort Stokes in honour of James Cook, who never actually saw the peak. Under the Ngāi Tahu settlement of 1998 the official name became Aoraki / Mount Cook, the only one of the renamed places where the Māori name comes first.

The mountain is still growing and falling at once. The collision of the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates along the Alpine Fault pushes it up by about 7 millimetres a year, while the ferocious weather of the Roaring Forties tears it down. On 14 December 1991 some 12 to 14 million cubic metres of rock and ice fell from the summit, lowering it by 10 metres, and erosion of the exposed ice cap took off another 30 over the following two decades. The first known ascent was made on Christmas Day 1894 by three New Zealanders, Tom Fyfe, Jack Clarke and George Graham, spurred on by news that an American climber planned to try. The mountain remains a serious objective for experienced alpinists.

For everyone else the great view is from the valleys. The Hooker Valley Track, about 10 km there and back and mostly flat, crosses three swing bridges to Hooker Lake, with the mountain filling the head of the valley. On calm days on the West Coast, the peaks of Aoraki and Mount Tasman are reflected in Lake Matheson.

Getting there

Mount Cook Village, the tourist centre and climbers' base, lies 15 km south of the summit at the end of State Highway 80, which runs along Lake Pukaki; the nearest town, Twizel, is 65 km away. The Hooker Valley Track starts at the White Horse Hill car park, a short drive from the village. By straight-line distance the nearest airfield is Hokitika (HKK) on the West Coast, about 120 km away across the Main Divide, and the nearest large town is Timaru, about 126 km away.