Hooker Glacier (New Zealand)

Hooker Lake is a proglacial lake that started to form in the late 1970s by the recent retreat of the Hooker Glacier. It is in the Hooker Valley, in the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand's South Island, just south of Aoraki / Mount Cook.

Mount Cook Range (Māori: Kirikirikatata; officially gazetted as Kirikirikatata / Mount Cook Range) is an offshoot range of the Southern Alps of New Zealand. The range forks from the Southern Alps at the Green Saddle and descends towards Lake Pukaki, encompassing Aoraki / Mount Cook and standing adjacent to the Tasman Glacier.In 1889, the highest point of the range was 3763m, but this has since been reduced by avalanches and erosion.

The Copland Pass (el. 2,150 metres or 7,050 feet) is an alpine pass in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Known as Noti Hinetamatea by the indigenous Ngāi Tahu, the pass follows the route of the Makaawhio ancestor Hinetamatea and her sons Tātāwhākā and Marupeka.The Copland Pass is on a traditional tramping route connecting Mount Cook Village with the West Coast of New Zealand, 26 kilometres (16 mi) south of Fox Glacier. The Copland Pass is located on the Main Divide and is thus located on the boundary of Aoraki / Mount Cook and Westland Tai Poutini National Parks.The Copland River on the western side of the Main Divide may have been named by the surveyor J. G. Roberts for Dr James Copland, an early settler in Otago. Edward FitzGerald and Matthias Zurbriggen crossed the Main Divide just 500 metres (1,600 ft) further south in February 1895 and that pass, with an elevation of 2,109 metres (6,919 ft), has been named FitzGerald Pass. A month later, the mountaineer Arthur Paul Harper was the first non-Māori man to cross the slightly higher Copland Pass (2,150 metres or 7,050 feet) and he named it for the main river draining its western side. Jane Thomson was the first non-Māori woman to cross the pass in 1903.Since the mid-1990s, the eastern climb towards the pass has experienced heavy erosion, and the Copland Pass has become extremely difficult to climb. The Department of Conservation advises that only parties with a "high level of mountaineering experience and appropriate mountaineering equipment" should attempt the crossing, and that numerous fatalities have occurred over the years. Furthermore, crossings should only be attempted from east to west. The Hooker Hut on the eastern side of the pass, which was on the traditional route for the crossing, is no longer accessible, but is stranded on an eroding moraine.

The Hooker Valley Track is the most popular short walking track within the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand. At only 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) length and gaining only about 100 m (330 ft) in height, the well formed track can be walked by tourists with a wide range of level of fitness.The track is maintained by the Department of Conservation and has views of Aoraki / Mount Cook and access to the proglacial Hooker Lake, typically with icebergs floating in it. Hooker Valley Track has been named one of the 'best day walks in New Zealand'.The lookout point at the end of the Hooker Valley Track is the closest any walking track comes to Aoraki / Mount Cook, and reveals completely unobstructed views of the highest mountain in New Zealand, with Hooker Glacier in the valley below. There is also access to the shore of the glacial lake. The vegetation around the track is open alpine tussock, and as such the track offers clear views of the mountains surrounding the wide valley floor of the Hooker Valley.

Tasman Lake is a proglacial lake formed by the recent retreat of the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand's South Island.In the early 1970s, there were several small meltwater ponds on the Tasman Glacier. By 1990, these ponds had merged into Tasman Lake. Tasman Lake has quickened the retreat of the Tasman Glacier. Initially it did so by undercutting the cliff at the end of the glacier, causing parts of the cliff to fall into the lake. Since 2006, however, a 50–60 m (160–200 ft) apron of submerged glacial ice projects out from the cliff, and icebergs periodically break off the apron and float away down the lake. Because more of the glacier is now in contact with the water, its rate of retreat has increased. By 2008 the lake was about 7 km (4 mi) long, 2 km (1 mi) wide and 245 m (800 ft) deep, having almost doubled in area since 2000. It is expected to grow to a maximum length of about 16 km (9.9 mi) within the next one or two decades.Tasman Lake, the glacier and the surrounding mountains are part of Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. Taking a boat tour among the icebergs on the Tasman Lake is now a popular tourist activity. For safety reasons the small inflatable boats are not allowed closer than 1.5 km (0.9 mi) to the 50 m (160 ft) tall terminal face of Tasman Glacier. Tasman Lake can be reached by road from the nearby Mount Cook Village and a short walk from the car park at the end of the road. Like many other geographic places in both New Zealand and Australia, it is named after Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman.

Blue Lake is a small lake at the foot of the Tasman Glacier in inland Canterbury, in the central South Island of New Zealand. Its outflow is the Tasman River, part of the Waitaki River system.

The Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail is a cycle trail in New Zealand. This trail is one of the projects of the New Zealand Cycle Trail project. The trail extends more than 300 kilometres (190 mi) from Aoraki / Mount Cook to Oamaru on the Pacific Ocean. From west to east, it descends from an altitude of 780 metres (2,560 ft) down to sea level. The trail has both on and off-road sections.Funding for the trail from the New Zealand Community Trust budget was approved in July 2010, after the trail had been shortlisted as one of 13 from 54 nationwide proposals.

Sealy Tarns is a small flat area with two small tarns halfway up the northern slopes of the Sealy Range, New Zealand. It is accessible from the Hooker Valley and Mount Cook Village via a tramping track maintained by the Department of Conservation (DOC). The track climbs steeply from about 850 m (2,789 ft) to 1,300 m (4,265 ft) via many switchbacks and over 2,200 steps built of large timber anchored into the ground. The track was established during the 1980s, and upgraded in 2012. The distance for a return trek from Hooker Valley Road to Sealy Tarns is 5.8 km (3.6 miles).The Sealy Tarns area marks the end of the well-maintained track, with a popular tramping route that continues to climb to Mueller Hut. The area features two small tarns (hence its name), an area suitable for tobogganing on the side of the ridge, and an excellent view of The Footstool, Aoraki / Mount Cook, both Hooker and Mueller Glaciers and their respective proglacial lakes, and Mount Cook Village.

Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park is a national park located in the central-west of the South Island of New Zealand. Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, and Mount Cook Village lie within the park. The area was gazetted as a national park in October 1953 and covers 707 km2 (273 sq mi). Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park borders Westland Tai Poutini National Park along the Main Divide of the Southern Alps. The national park consists of reserves that were established as early as 1885 to protect the area's significant landscape and vegetation. Many of the geographical features in the park were named by or for early European surveyors and explorers. Following the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, the name of the of the national park and geographical features of Ngāi Tahu's takiwā (tribal area) were officially changed in October 1998 to recognise their historic Māori name. Glaciers cover 40% of the park area. Notably, the county's largest glacier—Haupapa / Tasman Glacier—lies within the national park. In the nearby Mackenzie Basin, Māori would burn tōtara forests to assist them with their hunting of moa and gathering food before heading west in search of pounamu, however there is no evidence of permanent or temporary Māori settlement within the national park. The park is managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) and acknowledges the Ngāi Tahu iwi who hold mana whenua status of the land along with Te Wāhipounamu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site established in 1990. The national park is home to more than four hundred species of plants, including more than one hundred introduced species. There are about thirty-five species of birds in the park, including the rare black stilt and pīwauwau. At the end of the most recent ice age, around 13,000 years ago, numerous glaciers in the park were tributaries of a much larger glacier covering all of Hooker Valley and Tasman Valley in hundreds of metres of ice. This glacier was about 85 km (53 mi) long and reached beyond the southern end of today's Lake Pukaki, up to 40 km (25 mi) south of Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. As the glacier retreated, it filled the hollowed-out valleys, leaving behind the flat-bottomed U-shaped valleys seen today in the national park. Most of the park is alpine terrain, The only road access into Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park is via State Highway 80 which starts 65 km (40 mi) away near Twizel—the closest town to the park—that leads directly to Mount Cook Village along the western shore of Lake Pukaki. There is a small airfield situated within the national park—Mount Cook Aerodrome—which is located 5 km (3.1 mi) southeast of Mount Cook Village. There are numerous walking tracks in the national park—most popular being the Hooker Valley Track—which is a relatively short walking track and takes typically three hours to complete. In addition to short walks and hikes, other popular activities include boat tours, hunting, kayaking, mountaineering, and ski-touring. The park is popular with astrophotographers and star-gazers because it has a clear atmosphere and low levels of light pollution. Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park and the Mackenzie Basin were designated as the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve in June 2012.

Mount Cook Village, officially Aoraki / Mount Cook, is located within New Zealand's Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park at the end of State Highway 80, only 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south of the summit of the country's highest mountain, also called Aoraki / Mount Cook, in the Southern Alps. Being situated inside a National Park, it is not possible to own property in Mount Cook Village; however, because of the year-round operation of the hotel and motels, the village has a small permanent population of around 250.All buildings and facilities operate on concessions and leases from the government. The village has no grocery stores apart from a small in-hotel convenience store. The nearest supermarket is 65 kilometres (40 mi) away in Twizel, the closest town. There is a self-service petrol pump behind the hotel complex; however, the fuel price reflects the remote location.Mount Cook Village operates a small school with a roll as low as a dozen children, the only school in New Zealand inside a national park.

The Hermitage Hotel in Mount Cook Village, New Zealand, is a hotel located inside the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park, 65 kilometres (40 mi) north of Twizel. The current building dates from 1958 and forms the main part of Mount Cook Village, being the only large building. Along with a nearby lodge and motels, the hotel trades as Aoraki Mt Cook Alpine Village and is owned by Trojan Holdings.

Mount Sefton (Māori: Maukatua) is a mountain in the Aroarokaehe Range of the Southern Alps of New Zealand, just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of Aoraki / Mount Cook. To the south lies Mount Brunner, and to the north The Footstool, both more than 400 metres (1,300 ft) shorter.The mountain is prominently visible from Mount Cook Village in the Hooker Valley, with Tuckett Glacier flowing down the south-eastern side of the mountain and Mueller Glacier in the valley below it. With a height of 3,151 metres (10,338 ft), Mount Sefton is the 13th-highest peak in the Southern Alps, and the 4th-highest mountain in New Zealand when excluding peaks of little prominence that are closer than a kilometre to a higher peak. The Douglas River (formerly known as the Twain River) begins on Mount Sefton.An early resident, Charles French Pemberton, named the area, whilst the geologist Julius von Haast named the mountain after William Sefton Moorhouse, the second Superintendent of Canterbury Province. The Māori name of the mountain is Maukatua, which translates as 'mountain of the gods'.Edward FitzGerald, with Matthias Zurbriggen as his guide, completed the first recorded climb to the summit shortly after Christmas 1894.