After saying our goodbyes to Jennifer and her family, we were on the road back to a familiar place. If you remember, Mt. Cook was the place where we were drenched in freezing rain and hail. This time, we were headed back up there with the hope the the weather will stay nice throughout the day. The day began a little chilly with a lot of sunlight, making us all the more optimistic.
The drive there seemed fairly short, and it was awesome to see the incredible turquoise waters of Lake Pukaki once again. Approaching Mt. Cook, we realized that the area looked completely different than what we remembered. When we got to Hooker Valley, it was covered in snow and ice. Little did we know, between the time we left and the time we returned, there was a snowstorm that dumped about a foot of snow on the entire area. The snow also left one of the roads to the actual trail head closed. So, we parked the car up near most of the buildings in the small village of Mt. Cook, put on some warm clothes, and got going to the beginning of the trails.
Since the road was closed, we walked to the trail head on a small footpath patted down into the snow. It was only about a half hour walk to the beginning of the trails, but once we got there, the hike that we were planning on doing turned off to the left, while the nice patted down foot trail went the opposite direction. It was a pretty substantial change in terrain because the trail of Sealy Tarns (the hike we were doing) only had a few foot prints on it, leaving most of the track covered in about a foot of snow. Nevertheless, we began to make our way up.
The hike quickly steepened from a walk to a climb, as the trail consisted mostly of wooden steps build up the side of the mountain. The local Kiwi story was that the famous band Led Zeppelin had come up with the name of their famous song "Stairway to Heaven" after completing this trip. Regardless of whether that story is true, we could immediately tell why this was a common story. This was a serious workout, and the cold weather quickly turned from uncomfortable to refreshing as we began to work up a sweat. It also didn't help that the stairs were covered in snow and ice. However, as we made our way up higher and higher, we could see more and more of the Hooker Valley that we had walked through a few days ago. We were now stood on the side of one of the mountains that was obstructed by fog and clouds the last time we were there. The sun was shining bright, and the higher we went, the more we could see. The valley ground, the surrounding mountains, the lake, and the glacier were all visible and lit up with amazing lighting.
After about 2 hours of climbing up, it was getting late, and were getting into much heavier snow. The snow was now coming up past our knees in certain spots and the the sun was going to set in a few hours. We took one last gaze over the entire valley, swallowed our pride, and made the smart decision to head back down. Though we didn't reach the top of the hike, the view was absolutely incredible the entire way up, since there were no trees or clouds obstructing us. The entire hike was on an open mountain face.
The way down was certainly easier, and a lot more fun because we could almost body sled our way down. It was an awesome finale to our tramping expedition and we were feeling really happy coming down from the mountain. Since we were staying the night in a Mt. Cook hostel, we were home in no time. A bowl of instant ramen and some tea put me to bed very early, giving me plenty of sleep for our final day in the South.
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