Tomorrow morning the journey begins!
After months of training, planning, talking and expectation it is now the night before the big journey begins!
Tomorrow morning, Monday 7 November, around 5ish we will be gulping the last slurps of tea, hoisting our packs, and heading off into the dawning reality of the Cook to Cook adventure!
Our plan is to walk up the Hooker Valley, by-passing the Lake and finding our way onto the Hooker Glacier. We are preparing ourselves for a snow slog up the glacier, as there has been a huge dump of snow in the last few days (so much for “summer” conditions!). The prospect of avalanches from the mountains around us will be on our minds. We have the safety equipment we need and we will need to move quickly to minimse the risk.
All going well we will arrive up at the Empress Hut in the afternoon. This Hut is one of the most spectacular in the whole Mt Cook National Park. Perched on a rocky outcrop at 2500 meters, it is surrounded by glaciers, and a panorama of mountains including Aoraki/Mount Cook itself.
We plan to settle in there and make ourselves as warm as possible for the next 2 nights. On Tuesday the forecast says we will have some rain in the morning, so our plan is to use the day to rest and hopefully in the afternoon get out and suss out the route for the next day. We have heard that the access to the higher parts of the mountain are challenged by crevasses and rock, so it will be important to get clear on the route we are taking while we have good daylight.
On Wednesday 9 th Nov we will be up VERY early – probably around 1am or so – and heading out into the night with our headtorches lighting the way ahead. We are hoping for calm crisp conditions to travel up onto the Empress Shelf and from there up the Hooker Face and on to the high peak of Aoraki/ Mount Cook. Everything hinges on getting good conditions. And yes, we will be VERY careful!
Once we reach the top we have a decision to make – either come back down the Western side (which involves a long traverse along the Summit Ridge) OR go down the Eastern side of the mountain using the route called the “Linda Glacier”. It is the most common way that the mountain is climbed and would result in us finishing a very long day at Plateau Hut.
After that we are likely to have a bit of a lie down :)
Then it is a day’s walk out back to Mount Cook village.
Of course our plans may well change as we learn more about the conditions. So, the best way to follow us while we are out of cell phone range (which is most of the time) will be using our SPOT tracker. This clever little device tracks our progress and posts it on this website… so you can walk with us in spirit. Don’t panic if it takes a while to update.. that may happen for all sorts of reasons and especially if there is bad weather.
Click this link to go to the page where you can follow our progress
Many thanks for your support!
Sarah and Cat
Posted by Sarah Wilson on 6th November, 2011 | Comments
Tags: Cook to Cook
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