Useful phone numbers:
Visitor Centre: +64 3 435 1186
Weather: +64 3 435 1187
Hermitage: +64 3 435 1809
Alpine Guides: +64 3 435 1834
Hostelling International Mount Cook: +64 3 435 1820

Getting there
From Twizel a sealed road leads right into the park. Aoraki/Mount Cook Village lies at the end of the road just below the terminals of the Hooker and Mueller Glaciers.
*Aoraki/Mount Cook village has an airport, but no serviced flights.
* A regular bus service operates to Aoraki/Mount Cook Village.P>

Facilities
The Department of Conservation Visitor Centre has displays and information on the Aoraki/Mount Cook region. Weather forecasts, up-to-date track information and conservation merchandise, including publications and maps, are also available. There are no banks at Aoraki/Mount Cook Village but EFTPOS facilities are available.

What to take
The alpine tramping routes in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park are not for the inexperienced. The weather conditions can be severe and groups attempting the trips must be properly equipped and well prepared.

Park
Your group should have a capable leader and everyone must carry a sleeping bag, sufficient high energy food (with some extra for emergencies), a waterproof raincoat and over trousers, gloves, a hat, and several layers of warm (wool or fleece) clothing.

Take sun cream and sunglasses, summer or winter. Your group will also need a first aid kit, portable stove, fuel, cooking utensils and a map and compass (along with someone who knows how to use them). Boots and specialised equipment are necessary (ice axe and crampons are a minimum).

Warning
During and after heavy snow falls avalanches are possible. Please check at the Department of Conservation Visitor Centre for up-to-date information on weather and track conditions. Fill in an intention form and remember to let them know when you have completed your trip.

Features
The park is a harsh land of ice and rock. Glaciers cover 40% of it. There are 19 peaks over 3,000 metres including of course New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki/Mount Cook. The park is also part of Te Waipounamu - South Westland World Heritage Area in recognition of its outstanding natural values.

Tasman Glacier
The glaciers that have helped shape the park's landscape include five major valley systems: Godley, Murchison, Tasman, Hooker and Mueller. The Tasman Glacier, New Zealand's largest and longest glacier, is clearly visible from the main highway at the entrance of the park. Its 27 km long, up to three km wide and 101 sq km. Although covered with rock material in its lower reaches, the ice of the Tasman is about 600 metres deep near the Hochstetter Icefall.

Aoraki/Mt Cook
At 3754 metres, New Zealand's tallest peak is known as Aoraki by Maori. According to legend, Aoraki was a young boy in the canoe Te Waka a Aoraki, which was stranded on a reef and tilted to one side. Aoraki and his brothers climbed to the high side and sat on the wreckage. The south wind froze them and turned them into stone, creating the Southern Alps/Ka Tiritiri o te Moana.

In 1851 Captain J. L. Stokes, sailing down the West Coast, gave the mountain its European name, Mt Cook, in honour of the English navigator Captain James Cook.

Topuni
To Ngai Tahu, Aoraki represents the most sacred of ancestors, from whom Ngai Tahu descend and who provide the iwi with its sense of communal identity, solidarity and purpose. The ancestor embodied in the mountain remains the physical manifestation of Aoraki, the link between the supernatural and the natural world. The tapu associated with Aoraki is significant to the tribal value, and is the source of the power over life and death which the mountain possesses. Aoraki/Mt Cook has Topuni status, a public sysmbol of Ngai Tahu manawhenua and rangatiratanga. Today the park is recognised as one of the finest mountaineering areas in the world, for both experienced and novice climbers. High-level huts are equipped with radios for climbers to use. Information on huts, fees, weather and in winter avalanche conditions, can be obtained from the Visitor Centre.

Plants and animals
There is virtually no forest in the park. Instead the park is alive with the most wonderful alpine plants.Over 300 species of plants are found in the park. Among the most spectacular of these are many varieties of mountain buttercup (Ranunculus) and daisy/tikumu (Celmisia). The famed Mount Cook lily, Ranunculus lyalli, is the largest buttercup in the world.

About 40 species of birds are found in the park, and perhaps the most distinctive of these is the kea, a mountain parrot well known for its mischievous antics. The only true alpine bird is the tiny rock wren/ piwauwau, which survives the winter in high rock basins. However kea, falcons/karearea and black-backed gulls/karoro can be found soaring in higher areas. The braided riverbed of the Tasman is home to the kaki/black stilt, one of New Zealand's rarest birds.

The park is rich with invertebrate fauna, including large dragonflies, grasshoppers, distinctive moths and butterflies. A black alpine weta known as the Mount Cook flea is found above the snowline. The jewelled gecko lives in the region but is so secretive that it is rarely seen.  

A high level of fitness is required and because the peak is 600 metres higher than surrounding ridges, it is exposed to high winds and rapid changing weather conditions.