#mt. cook

[laimelady]

Mueller Hut Under Milky Way Panorama by Celia zhen Via Flickr: Mueller Hut provides a 360-degree panorama encompassing glaciers, ice cliffs, vertical rock faces and New Zealand’s highest peaks. This is an alpine serviced 28-bunk hut in the Aoraki Mt Cook National Park, New Zealand. Mueller Hut Overnight Trip is 6.5 miles, elevation gain: ~3400', not a easy track with all of the equiment, sleeping bag, food, water... especially the heavy tripod, camera. www.celiazhen.com/

[umpquawinding]

From Te Anu we drove to Mt. Cook National Park, which I had been looking forward to most. This was from December 15 when we drove in. It was, of course, cloudy and rainy :( I couldn’t see most of the peaks yet. We stayed at the only campground in the park, which was right near the village, as well as the trailhead location for nearly every hike we wanted to do. 

[wanderlog]

Mt. Cook

[ms-11]

Mt. Cook, New Zealand

I spent the last 16 months of my life living and working in Queenstown, New Zealand. This was the most amazing place I’ve ever lived in my life.

I’ll be posting photos of my time there. Have a picture of Mt. Cook today :)

[quo-usque-tandem]

Mt. Cook, New Zealand

[etherealvistas]

Inner Flame (New Zealand) by William Patino || Website | Facebook | Instagram

[wenbochenphoto]

Mountain Daisy (Celmisia semicordata) of Mt. Cook. Pretty large plant, leaf can be 60cm long, all covered by silver hair, feels quite stiff though. #Asteraceae #Celmisia #寒菀属 #菊科 #NewZealandPlant #SouthIslandPlant #AlpinePlant

[earthstory]

Another shrinking mountain

This image shows a lake at the foot of Aoraki (also known as Mt. Cook), the tallest mountain in New Zealand.

A few years ago, if you’d checked the listings online for this mountain, or if you checked a previously-published book, its height would be listed at 3754 meters (12,316 feet). Over the past week, the mountain suddenly shrank by 30 meters, to a height of 3724.

This mountain has shrunk before. In 1991, the peak was listed as 3764 meters tall until a giant avalanche took away the uppermost 10 meters. However, nothing as stunning as that happened recently; the mountain was simply remeasured. Using GPS technology, a group from the University of Otago visited the summit and found that the peak was in fact 30 meters (99 feet) shorter than previous measurements had determined.

-JBB

Image credit: Stu (creative commons license) http://www.flickr.com/photos/16693201@N00/2154268226/

Press report: http://m.livescience.com/42610-new-zealand-aoraki-mount-cook-shrinks.html?cmpid=514645

That time when Denali also shrank: https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/570353933025655