Hike to Hooker Lake

One of the highlights of our trip was the hike from White Horse Hill Campground to Hooker Lake on the Hooker Valley Track:

The Alpine Memorial with Mount Sefton in the background:

Mueller Lake with Mount Sefton, The Footstool, Mueller Glacier, Huddleston Glacier and Stocking Glacier:

We crossed the Hooker River twice on suspension bridges (Kiwis call them swingbridges). This is the first crossing, at the outlet of Mueller Lake:

Below is our destination, Hooker Lake, with Mount Cook in the background. The Hooker Glacier flows down Mount Cook into Hooker Lake. You can see the glacier in the background (it is dirty). A whiter iceberg is floating in the lake to the right of Emily. The color of the lake water is typical of glacier melt.

It was a beautiful day and the hike was fairly flat. White Horse Hill Campground is about 2,500 feet above sea level, and Hooker Lake is about 3,000 feet. Mount Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand at 12,316 feet. It is the mountain that Sir Edmund Hillary trained on before going on to become one of the two people to first climb Mount Everest.

Click here for a brochure with a map.