The Southern Alps & Aoraki/Mount Cook
Aoraki/Mount Cook is New Zealand's highest peak, a 12,000-foot giant that crowns the Southern Alps, the great mountain range running like a spine down the length of the South Island. Snow-capped and often wreathed in cloud, it presides over a landscape of glaciers, scree slopes and alpine valleys, and the first sight of it rising at the head of the valley is one of the country's most stirring moments.
Below the peak lie the turquoise glacial waters of Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo, their milky blue color drawn from the rock flour ground fine by the glaciers above. The gentle Hooker Valley Track leads toward a glacier-fed lake studded with floating icebergs directly beneath the summit, while the long tongue of the Tasman Glacier, the largest in the country, invites scenic flights and heli-hikes onto the ice itself.
And then there is the night. Far from any city light, this is one of the clearest skies on earth, for the whole region forms the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, where the Milky Way blazes overhead and the stars come down almost to the horizon. We build in time for both the mountains by day and the heavens by night, so a stay here rewards you twice over.
