Mount Cook facts: the peak, the ancestor and the ice

The first of the Mount Cook facts is the simplest. Aoraki/Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand, and DOC gives its height as 3,724 m.¹ NIWA describes the main divide of the Southern Alps reaching that height at its summit.⁷ DOC describes the park around it as rough country of rock and ice, where 19 summits pass 3,000 metres.^8,6 Tourism New Zealand compares the park's area to Singapore.⁹

Where is Aoraki/Mount Cook located? In the central South Island, where State Highway 80 runs out after leaving State Highway 8 at Lake Pukaki.^2,10 Allow 4.5 hours by road from Christchurch, says DOC, or 3.5 from Queenstown.² The map here marks the road in, the walks of the Hooker Valley and the peaks above the village. InterCity notes that the park covers 70,696 hectares and was formally established as a national park in 1953.¹¹

The park is part of a much larger protected landscape. DOC explains that it is part of Te Wāhipounamu, the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area, a listing that honours its natural values.¹² In the widest sense the mountain is not just a summit, but the high heart of a chain of glaciers, valleys and lakes running down the length of the island. The village sits inside the park, at the foot of the mountain's southern ridges.

Ask what is Mount Cook to a chart-maker and to Ngāi Tahu, and you get different answers. The European name came from the sea. In 1851 Captain Stokes, sailing down the West Coast, named the mountain after the navigator Captain James Cook.⁴ The modern name joins both histories. Ngāi Tahu records that the mountain was renamed Aoraki / Mount Cook, and that the new name flowed on to the village and the national park.¹⁷ Both names now appear together on road signs and maps, joined by a slash.

The renaming was part of a larger settlement. Ngāi Tahu explains that the Crown agreed to include the return of Aoraki to the tribe in its Settlement Offer.³⁶ Once the title passed to Ngāi Tahu, the tribe would gift Aoraki to the nation, as a lasting sign of its commitment to managing places of historic, cultural and conservation value together with the Crown.¹⁸ The gift turned a legal title into a statement about how the mountain should be looked after.

Alongside the gift, the settlement handed Ngāi Tahu several formal tools: a Statutory Acknowledgement, a Deed of Recognition, Tōpuni status and the position of Statutory Adviser.³⁷ Those tools give the iwi a voice in how the mountain is cared for. They also explain the requests visitors meet in the park: DOC notes that Ngāi Tahu cannot accept waste left in the park, as the streams from Aoraki are sacred to them.³⁸ Take that as the house rule of a sacred place.

Glaciers cover 40% of the park, according to DOC.⁵ Five major valley systems carry them: the Godley, Murchison, Tasman, Hooker and Mueller.²⁵ The Tasman Glacier is New Zealand's largest and longest; DOC measures it at 23 km in length and up to three km across, covering 101 sq km.^67,28 It is clearly visible from the highway at the park entrance, without any walk at all.⁶⁷ Watch for it as the road nears the village.

The glaciers reach far beyond their ice. Lake Pukaki takes its turquoise colour from glacial flour, rock ground so fine that it hangs in the water.⁹³ The lake is fed by the braided Tasman River, which rises in the Hooker and Tasman glaciers.⁹⁴ The Pukaki Boulders beside the highway are glacial erratics that the Tasman Glacier dropped over 10,000 years ago.⁹⁵ The whole drive in is a lesson in what moving ice leaves behind.

Closer to the village, Hooker Lake at the end of the most famous walk collects icebergs in summer.³⁴ DOC asks visitors not to climb them, as they are unstable and can tip without warning.⁸⁵ The lakes are typically about 3 degrees, cold enough to cause hypothermia quickly.²⁹ Look, photograph and stay on the shore; that is the safe way to meet the ice on foot. The colours of the floating ice change with the light through the day.

Why is Mount Cook so famous? Height alone would make it a landmark, but its fame comes as much from the people who tried to climb it. DOC records the first attempt in 1882 by the Irish Reverend Green and two Swiss guides, whose party came within 20 metres of the top.^14,15 Success came in 1894, when the New Zealanders Tom Fyfe, George Graham and Jack Clarke stood on top.¹⁵ DOC now ranks the park with the great climbing grounds of the world.¹⁰⁰

The village carries that history. Old Mountaineers, beside the visitor centre, has a claim no other business in the village shares: Sir Edmund Hillary officially opened it.¹⁰¹ The Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre at the Hermitage tells the story of the region, its climbers and Hillary himself.³² For anyone who grew up on stories of mountains, this is a place where the names on the old photographs stood.

The rest of the fame comes from access. A sealed road runs right to the village, and a day walk leads to the foot of the peak. DOC puts the Hooker Valley in the top tier of New Zealand day walks.¹⁰² Add the turquoise lakes, the glaciers and the sacred story of Aoraki, and what Mount Cook is famous for becomes clear: a mountain that is both a climber's test and a place anyone can stand beneath.