140: Sealy Tarns and Mueller Hut Hike
Another backblog which I started when I just got back from a day hike up Mount Ollivier in the Mount Cook Area.
10/05/06
The day started slow as weather forecast was poor and it was pretty cloudy so visibility of and in the mountains was expected to be poor.
(Photo link at bottom)
I was planning to head off towards the East Coast today but decided to go for a little walk in the morning to Kea Point overlooking Mueller Glacier and maybe up a steep track to Sealy Tarns which would give great views over the Hooker Valley (Hooker is another Glacier). I joined a nice couple for that walk, Robert is Ozzie and Claudia is German.
The walk to Kea Point turned out to be quite brief and on the way back we decided to walk a bit up the track to Sealy Tarns (Tarns=Little Lakes I’m told).
It was still cloudy/misty but not long after with walked up the track the mist cleared and it turned nice and sunny with excellent views over the mountains.
We decided to keep walking and (often out of breath along the way;-) eventually made it up to Sealy Tarns. The route was steep, partly rubble, stones or some basic steps dug into the hill There was a bit of “climbing” involved to get up there but not too much. The route was lined with plenty of nice bushes and alpine plants and some long grasses dotted around, quite a beautiful area and the views of the surrounding valleys and hills got better and better the higher we got.
The track was farily steep but alot of the route was aided by the provision of steps of some sort (half deteriorated in many places but still very useable). Eventually we reached a height where only grass grew.
Near Sealy Tarns Claudia decided to turn around and back down as she was tired but Robert joined me to continued up to Sealy Tarns along with a Korean guy that had joined us along the way. He wasn’t really prepared for the walk up the mountain lacking warm clothes, proper shoes and wind- and weatherproof gear which was pretty essential on a hike up to 1700m altitude but he continued anyway..
Sealy Tarns at around 1200m was a small, more or less flat plateau with two little “lakes” (more pond like) in the hill side. Reflections of the mountains in the water looked nice..
After taking some photos we all wanted to keep going up. It was too tempting to climb just a little further up but we did not plan to go all the way up to Mueller Hut as it was meant to be a very long hike.. So we climbed further up the mountain. It was steeper now, no steps and a lot more climbing involved.
The Korean guy was seriously fit I have to say. He didnt make a single noise while I was puffing my way up, happy as it was a great walk up there but it was some pretty good excercise too 😉
I took a bunch more photos whilst the other guys continued and eventually I had to catch up with them. When I joined them Robert said the Korean guy (whose name I forgot) would go back down. Much to my surprise but Rob mentioned that he had to catch a bus that afternoon.
Robert and I were keen to continue up and so we did..
The track got even steeper, climbing, scrambling over rocks and walking over steep, loose ground.. Soon we reached the first snowy patches which turned out to me more ice than snow. The last stretch was rather icy and we had to be pretty careful no to slip and loose grip.. The though of sliding down a steep slope was not too appealing 😉 Others managed though and so did we (though we did not look forward to the downhill walk – *damn it* didn’t think of that, did we?;-))
The view from up there was very exciting, also becaue we could now see the hills behind the mountain that we climed up.. (I think it is the rest of Mt Sefton of which we saw a little slice whilst climbing up this route). We kept walking over more snowy/icy ground now but it was fairly flat to quite easy to walk and eventually saw Mueller Hut in the distance..
After enjoying the view for a while (and Robert eating half a ton of snow) we decided to head back and face that darn steep icy slope again 😉 Of course we managed (though we walked extremely slow;-) and the rest of the route downhill went surprisingly quick. It took us about half the time down than it took us to get up there. Not really that surprising I guess since we climbed up a height of 1000m..
Mind you the walk downhill was pretty tough on legs/knees and no doubt the sore muscles the next day came more from the walk downhill, not uphill. I never like walking on steps ayway as it is too much of an abrupt impact with every step whilst a slope if more a continues force.. never mind probably not making any sense here but you know what I mean if you have walked slopes vs steps for a prolonged time yourself..
We made it just in time back to the car before it started to rain… A perfect day that started overcast and misty with prospect of rain but unexpectedly turned beautiful sunny with clear sky and quite warm at times and kindly stayed that way until we finished our hike 🙂
Sealy Tarns and Mueller Hut Hike Photo Slideshow
Hike Map
Tags: New Zealand, RTW 2005/2006, South Island
saschas
[…] 140: Sealy Tarns and Mueller Hut Hike […]