We are cruising back to Christchurch after a night at Mueller Hut. It went a bit like this:
We had a good view in the morning of Mt Cook from our camp site across Lake Pukaki, which meant it wasn’t doing the rain thing around the Main Divide. We headed into Mt Cook Village and after a brief stop at DoC decided we’d risk it and head up to Mueller Hut.
The track start from the camp site near Mt Cook Village and heads up to the Sealy Tarns. There are several bazillion steps and it’s steep enough to make you work hard. Once we had conquered the steps it was on to the poled route to the ridge. This was also nice and steep. Once we reached the ridge we were exposed to the strong wind blasting across the tops. The walk along the ridge takes about 15 minutes and once we had plodded through the snow we sheltered in the hut.
We spent the rest of the day trying to decide whether to stay the night or walk back down again to avoid the bad weather that was predicted. William and I went for a quick prance up to Mt Ollivier where we could see down to Mt Cook Village and out to Lake Pukaki.
Mueller Hut sleeps 28 people and is a large red iron clad creation. It is well anchored with many iron pilings and doesn’t look like it could be blown away as was the case with one of the old alpine huts (whose name I can’t remember). That’s a good thing. Hut tickets can be purchased from DoC and were $36 in 2014. The hut has a volunteer warden and a guitar named Charlotte. Unfortunately there wasn’t a chance to play with Charlotte but William did instigate table traverses in the evening. We had left it long enough that the decision to stay had been made for us.
This was good as after it stormed in the night the weather wasn’t too shabby when we got up in the morning and started walking out. It snowed just a little bit on the ridge. And rained only a little further down. We escaped back to Christchurch where we cooked Anita a Birthday dinner.
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Above: A nice wee map of our walk to Mueller Hut (that’s if www.topomap.co.nz still lives).
Above left: Simon, William, and I camped the night at Lake Pukaki after I met them in Twizel after Gina’s tramping trip with her Wellingtonians. We found nice spot on a hilly bit and pitched our tent out of the wind. It wasn’t too far away from where Leonie and I had camped a year ago. Above right: The weather was finally looking ok and I raced down to the water in the morning to get this quick snap of Mt Cook.
Above left: Mt Cook didn’t look too bad through the super zoom on my DSLR either… Above right: We headed into Mt Cook Village, checked what the story was with DoC, and despite the predictions of high winds and bad weather on Sunday we decided to go for it. We began the climb of many steps.
Above left: We had nice views of Cook, and the Hooker Valley. You can also see Ball Pass and the route down that we took a week ago. Above right: Did I mention the view? It was good.
Above: We had great views of Cook as we headed up the million steps to Mueller Hut.
Above left: It was quite steep and some trudging was involved. The track of many steps stops at the Sealy Tarns and from there upwards there is a poled route. Above right: The wind picked up a lot once we reached the ridge and we had 15 minutes of being blown around until we reached the hut. You can’t see it here as we’re just standing a little bit out of the wind.
Above: The last 15 minute walk along the ridge towards the hut was very windy.
Above: William and I went for a romp up to Mt Ollivier along the ridge.
Above left: William and I went for a scamper in the afternoon up Mt Ollivier. It was just 15 minutes of climbing from the hut. We got this awesome view from near the top. Above right:William and I went for a scamper in the afternoon up Mt Ollivier. It was just 15 minutes of climbing from the hut. We got this awesome view from near the top.
Above: The hut is a big corrugated iron affair, which seems to be bolted to the ground well enough that we weren’t worried it would blow away.
Above left: The two clouds in this picture hang over Cook the whole time hiding the mountain from our cameras. Above middle: What trip is complete without a table traverse. William showed the Aussies in the hut how it’s done in the evening. I demonstrated how it’s sometimes done and how it’s definitely not done. William also had a go and showing them how it’s not done… Above right: William and Simon were staunch men as we walked back down in the morning. No denying their staunchness.
Above left: It started to snow a bit as we walked along the ridge. Above right: Then it didn’t know whether to be sunny or to rain.
Some more photos here.