On our second to last day on the south island we decided that we would give Mt. Cook another try, since the first day the weather was dreadful. As we got in the car and left our quaint air bnb we were ready for the drive ahead of us. To get to Mt. Cook we had to go through Lindis Pass, which is a fairly steep road that has lots of curves along the way. The first time around the conditions on the road were normal, but today there was a little bit of snow on the ground so it was slow going. the traffic was pretty substantial and we were stuck going extremely slow for about a half hour. After clearing the traffic and snow we got to the town that's just outside Mt. Cook and got ourselves some breakfast (meat pies of course) and got back on the road. From the town its a short ride to the start of the national park, but from the start its a long drive to the valley. In order to get the the main area inside Mt. Cook you have to drive all along the eastern edge of Lake Pukaki, which is a fairly large lake that has beautiful turquoise water. While the view is quite stunning it gets pretty old after driving along it for some time. Eventually the road curves left and opens up into the valley, and we are soon surrounded by incredible snow covered mountains.
Once inside the valley our first stop is at one of the short glacier walks that we were told was extremely nice because the view is incredible and the walk is extremely short. We made it to the base of the trail and made our way up a few sets of stairs and were greeted by an incredible view of the valley and Lake Tasman. It was cool because you can see pieces of the glacier barely peeking out of the lake. From there we made our way down and we were heading over to Hooker Valley, where we would begin the Sealy Tarns hike. As we neared our turn we saw a mix of 15 cars/camper vans parked along the road near the beginning of the road. As we got closer we saw that the road was closed since it had snowed the night before, so we were forced to go to a different parking lot to start the trail. This detour would add about an hour to the hike but we had heard it was still worth it to do the hike. We trudged through a bit of snow and made our way to the trail head, weaving through the many Asian tourists that explored the Mt. Cook area swinging their selfie sticks in every direction. When we reached the beginning of the trail we planned to hike it was clear that this trail was done much less frequently, because the snow was not well packed down in comparison to the other trails. As we made our way up the trail was tough going, as it was considerably steep and comprised mostly of snow covered steps. Even though the trail made me physically exhausted it was definitely worth it, and as we got to one of the lookout points we were greeted by an incredible view of the surrounding valley. The fresh snow on the ground added to the picturesque moment and made the mountains seem that much more magnificent. As the sun began to set we made our way back down, and my legs were surely thanking me for not going up any more steps.
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