Aoraki Mt Cook & The Mackenzie High Country

Aoraki Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, towers over the 139 other 2000-metre peaks in Mt Cook National Park.  The mountain is named after the English explorer, Captain James Cook, who sailed round the North and South Islands in the late 1770s.  It was not until more than a century later that Europeans first attempted to climb Mt Cook.

After an expedition in 1882 failed to conquer the peak, natives, led by George Graham conquered Mt Cook on Christmas Day, 1894.  The summit is tempestuous, to say the least.  Wild blizzards batter its north peak, and weather conditions can change within minutes.  

Aoraki Mt Cook is part of one of the most active tectonic pressure points on earth.  The Australia-Indian tectonic plate rises approximately 7mm every year due to subterranean mantel-driven forces.  Although 7mm may not seem like much, it is an explosively fast rate, geologically speaking.