Mt Cook Memories (or, how did we end up in Switzerland?)

It’s often said that New Zealand is about a dozen different countries rolled up in one, and though it’s a bit of a cliché, it’s undoubtedly true.

During three weeks there, we likened New Zealand to many countries, cities and regions that we have been to or lived in, including (but not limited to): England, Scotland, Norway, Australia, Hawaii, the American Southwest, Montana/Wyoming, Nevada, the California wine country, the California central valley, the California Gold Country, Sacramento and San Francisco.

Our trip to Mt Cook National Park added Switzerland to the list.

From Twizel, we drove the 45 miles to the base of the Hooker Valley along gorgeous Lake Pukaki, the Southern Alps in all their glaciered glory glistening in the distance.

We decided (or I decided) that we would do the Hooker Valley Track, an 11 km hike to the base of the Hooker glacier and lake.

It was a sunny, warm morning when we set out along with scores of other hikers, as it’s the most popular track in the park. The trail soon came to the Mueller River- a very milky greenish color from glacial moraine-and the spot for a lovely view.

Then it’s over the first of three swing bridges, crossing the river that rages below.

The minute I stepped on the swaying, bouncing bridge, I went into heart racing, adrenaline pumping, barely-able-to-breathe panic attack mode and almost lost it before reaching the other side.

I realised that the sensation of being on an unstable bridge over a roaring river had triggered PTSD-like memories of a much more strenuous hike in the same area that I had made as a teenager with my parents and sister nearly fifty years earlier—a five day trek up the Hooker Valley and over the Copeland Pass to the western side of the Southern Alps that had involved climbing a glacier with a guide using crampons, ice axes and ropes, crossing several extremely rickety swing bridges and fording any number of smaller steams and rivers.

Although I hold many positive memories of the hike, it was extremely challenging in other ways.

My father had been taken by the idea to do this famous trek a couple of years earlier after we had hiked the Milford Track as a family and later gone to Mt Cook for the first time. He convinced my mother, who was no mountaineer, to agree  (probably by telling her it wouldn’t be that hard) and wrangled my younger sister and I into going along.

I recall it starting out as a fairly easy hike along the western edge of the glacier-filled Hooker Valley, to Hooker Hut, where we had to wait out some bad weather before attempting to surmount the pass.

Our young, fit guide who I remember as being European, not Kiwi, really had his hands full with the four of us who had never done any ice climbing before. It was terrifying and thrilling to be roped together doing something that dangerous and I felt a real sense of accomplishment when we reached the summit.

When the guide (whose name I don’t recall and who died in a mountaineering accident on Mt Cook a few years later) sent us on our own down the boulder field on the other side of the pass, my sister and I went ahead of my parents as mom was already struggling and dad was having to coax her along step by step.

We reached the next hut in the late afternoon and got dinner started and by the time my parents arrived, it was dark and my mom had all but given up. From the next day onward, we stayed well ahead of my parents as we were having a hard time dealing with my mom, who could be quite dramatic, frequently proclaiming that she couldn’t make it, and moaning that we should just leave her on the trail to die etc. while my dad stoically carried both their packs (I don’t know how he managed).

After coming down from the pass, the hike was relatively easy, traversing downhill through a beautiful temperate rainforest full of tree ferns and other exotic flora, except for the swing bridges, which were terrifying–often just two wires to hold on to while walking along a rope or wooden slat ladder. These completely freaked out my mom (and me, to be fair).

My sister and I would periodically stop to wait for  our parents, and one day we saw my dad emerge around a bend, his face covered in blood from a huge gash on his forehead. He had apparently fallen while carrying the 2 backpacks, and his large 35mm camera, which he wore around his neck, swung up and bashed him in the head. He was okay, but was quite a sight.

We finally made it to the final hut, near a hot springs, which we were all eagerly anticipating as we hadn’t bathed in days. The only problem was, it was an area rife with sandflies- tiny vicious biting insects that leave nasty itching welts and are ten times worse than mosquitoes—and as soon as we emerged from the warm, soothing waters, those pernicious little biters descended on our now repellent-free skin. We ran back to the hut to slather on insect repellent, but it was too late for my mom, who hadn’t run fast enough—we counted dozens of huge welts on her back alone.

All I carry of this eventful hike is my memories. I have no photos, because on the descent from the pass, while fording a quite fast moving river, I dropped the brand new Olympus 35 mm camera I had just gotten for Christmas in the river, ruining it.

It might sound pretty grim in this retelling, but I assure you, that trip entered our family lore and we all laughed about it in later years. Even my mom, who was a pretty good sport to even attempt such adventures, enjoyed recounting the more dramatic parts of the hike.

Tom’s surprise at my panic on the first swing bridge prompted me to recount the saga of Copeland Pass, which he said I ought to write down.

On our own hike up the valley, there were two more swing bridges—and countless gorgeous vistas to take in–on the way to Hooker Glacier, but Tom manfully gripped my elbow and gave me some welcome support on each. By the return journey, I felt much calmer.

The glacier itself was no great spectacle—covered in black sand and rocks, it looks nothing like we imagine glaciers to be and it was nothing like the glacier I had seen 40-something years earlier. Then, it filled the valley and had no lake at its foot.

Now, a milky green lake full of icebergs that are pulled inexorably towards the outlet, which tumbles down the mountain as the Hooker River, sits at the foot of the much diminished glacier.

But Mt Cook and the surrounding peaks are magnificent—just as they were all those years before when my family hiked along the side of the Hooker Valley.

While Tom and I sat taking in the scenery, I looked at the valley wall I knew we had traversed on that hike and could not see a track at all. Instead, I only saw a giant moraine field left behind by the retreating glacier, slashed by huge rockfalls that had erased all evidence of the earlier track and no sign at all of the hut we had stayed in below the pass.

I later learned that the Copeland Pass is no longer a recommended hike as the rockfalls have made it far too treacherous for any but the most experienced mountaineers.

And the historic Hooker Hut, built in 1910 and the oldest hut in the park, after becoming unusable in the 1990s, stranded on a moraine ridge and in danger of tumbling into the glacier below, was dismantled and removed to the Hooker Valley above Mueller Lake a few years ago.

Just as I have learned many times over on this trip, things change—even things like the contours of a mountain and its once massive glacier.

It’s sad that no one can now experience the exciting trek over Copeland Pass that I did with my family so many years ago, but the mountains maintain their grandeur and the trip up the valley, besides being spectacularly beautiful, was also a wonderful trip down memory lane.