Aoraki is the Maori name for Mount Cook; currently usually seen as "Aoraki/Mt. Cook" (now, can they rename Franz Josef glacier?). The run here from Omarama was short and uneventful, and the weather was not promising.
Mt. Cook Village in Aoraki National Park is a historic mountain resort recently rebuilt or remodeled with e.g. The Ahwanee in mind as a model. There is a grand hotel, The Hermitage. The new Visitor Center is spectacular, framing a view of the peak as you come in the door.
Of course today it showed only clouds. (We are bored bored bored with ourselves for carping about weather. It is what it is. Whatever.) Here's how some 19th-century artist saw Mt. Cook.
Here's a scale model of the park. In the valley on the left, Mt. Cook Village. In the valley on the right, the 12-km-long Tasman glacier, ending in a lake.
Marian found you could get a boat tour on Lake Tasman to see the icebergs that break off the glacier, so we took that. Arriving at the lake after a 25-minute walk over the moraine left by the glacier at its 1900 max extent.
Speeding along in the boat (there were two boats).
Guide getting ice samples for everyone to examine & taste—delicious, but gritty.
Glacier foot, boat for scale. The glacier once filled the valley to the height of the light-gray lateral moraine.
Iceberg detail.
Cute Australian family.
Some American couple.
We're staying tonight not in the posh Ahwanna-be but at a fairly modest lodge. Tomorrow on to somewhere or other—the purple binder's in the car.
No comments:
Post a Comment