Mt. Cook and the Hooker River Day One

Mt Cook and a large area around it are part of, you guessed it, Mt. Cook National Park. The park is on just about every tour buses schedule and gave Amy and I our first chance to play the role of a true NZ tourist Wooohoooo!!!

However the area also is home to the Hooker river which flows out of one of the many glaciers in the park and has good access and was in the guide book!

The book tells of ice cold water and fun rapids from the lower put-in which is only a quarter of a mile from the campground. It also talks of more action up stream of the normal put-in its just you have to hike up a sweet trail to get to it. That is all Amy and I knew and well that is where the story begins...

before i start a visual representation would aid in the telling of the story:

ok so you see the two lakes the lower put-in is the out flow of bottom lake and the upper put-in is at the outlet of the upper lake. The take out for both runs is in the upper right side of the picture where the hooker meet another river.( this pic is from day three... still to come...)

Amy and I got to the lower put-in w/o our boats at around 10:00am and liked what we saw and wanted to see more so we hiked all the way up to the upper lake w/o kayaks to scout the upper stuff and have a look around. liking what we saw we hike all the way back to the car getting there around lunch time. Round trip from the top lake to the car is about 7 miles.

ooo one more thing when the Hooker drops into the second lake the whole river pretty much goes under ground so we were going to have to portage that some how. furthermore the whitewater preceding the despairing of the river was quite stout and would need to be look at before committing to it. Other than that all the rest looked like sweet read and run IVish to IV+ stuff.

Amy and I eat a huge lunch to get ready for our mission. the plan was to hike with our boats all the way back up to the top lake put in there and then boat all the way to the end. Ok no more of me talking I will let the pictures do the talking from here.

Welcome to the Hooker home to grey, silty, and very cold water. This picture is from the swing bridge which is the put in for the lower run.

Looking down river towards the lower lake. This is the start of the harder/committing stuff and it just got steeper and steeper until it all just sived out in to the bottom lake.

The second of two swing bridges. The picture above was taken from the trail up against the wall where all the railing is. The weather this day was amazing and the tourist were out in force as you can see.

On the way up we heard sound of a large rapid and went off trail to have a look. This rapid had a stout hole at the bottom and a great view of Mt. Cook as well so i think it should be called "A hole with a view" but anyway the hole went and all was well.

All the above pictures were from our scouting trip up to the top lake now it was time to hike all the way back up with our kayaks...

First try with the backpack systems. Most of the other people in the park were Japanese people and they all were absolutely amazed with us waking with kayaks on our backs some would actually stop and clap as we walked by other just ooohh and ahhhh 'ed quite funny stuff.

It's all down hill from here on up.

Amy crossing the second swing bridge.

Quite the shot. Mt. Cook is around 11,00 ft tall.

Yes there really were icebergs in the top lake where we put in, a first for Amy and I. We got here at about 2:30 leaving us some six hours of light remaining in the day.

there was not much scouting to be done on the river so not many photos as well. The river proved to be much harder than it looked mainly because we could not see through the water and thus could not see if there was a rock an inch under the water. We are blessed back in the PNW to have clear rivers and not have to deal with such an issue.

We made it to the start of the ever steeping stuff and Amy and I knew we wanted nothing to do with it. So the portage began and well took a long time. We had to portage all the way to the lower lake and well see for your self...

The start of the Steep stuff from the newly started portage trail

This is a picture of it hitting the fan. You should click on it and blow it up and see, it was nasty, very very sive'y, and steep.

100% pure New Zealand.

This is the river going under a shit ton of rocks. Taken from the lower lake.

Well there you have it our first real mission in NZ. We were so beat after almost 15 miles of hiking a good bit with boats on our back that we just ditched the boats in the bushes and walked back to camp eat a HUGE dinner and went to bed. Leaving the lower section for day two...