Day 18 - Mt Cook, Mueller Hut Track

We woke up to a perfectly clear day and started out.  The first hour of the hike was stairs which went straight up.  After that the hike turned to scrambling over boulders and then we started crossing snowfields.  We could hear avalanches off Mt Sufton in the distance.  We got to the top of the ridge and then climbed another 20 minutes thru snow and builders to Mueller Hut.

View from Sealy Tarns (the halfway point).  Honestly, I was ready to quit after  climbing 100s of stairs but the views were awesome.

See the red hut near the top of the snowfield?

Mt Cook

I chilled at the hut and took in the view.

Matt decided to do the hike up to Mt. Olivier which was right behind the hut and the first mountain Sir Edmund Hilary ever climbed.  He got to glisade down.

View from Mt. Olivier

Every angle was beautiful here.

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not our finest self portrait

This was my favorite part of the whole trip.  After a long, challenging hike we glisaded down the snowfield.  It was pretty steep so you go going pretty fast and there was a cloud of snow that flew up after you.

We had so much fun that we hiked up the snowfield and did it again!

Sucha a great day and still plenty of sunlight, after we finished the Mueller Hut Track, we headed over to Kea Point.  It was a short hike out to a view point of the glacier.

Back at camp we were darn tired.  Thankfully we got a room for our 2nd night so we packed up our tent and moved over to our room.  After we made dinner and cleaned up, we chatted with the man next door for awhile.  He was british but currently living in Australia and in NZ on holiday.  He was a riot and once again we realized that the rest of the world cares way more about US politics than we do.