The original plan for our first full day at Aoraki/Mount Cook NP was to hike to Hooker Lake. It is from that vantage point that you have the best view of Mount Cook.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate as another cold front was passing overhead that morning, enshrouding the mountains with cloud cover and rain.

But the forecast called for a brief respite in the early afternoon, so we opted to do our second day plan first: several hikes along the edge of Tasman Lake to view the glacier there.

Tasman Glacier is the largest glacier in New Zealand.

It was a short drive to Lake Tasman trailhead, requiring us to cross over a typical one-lane bridge at the outset of Tasman Valley Road.

As we parked at the trailhead, the sky cleared. We headed out on the trail to the breach in the moraine where the water from the terminal lake flows south as the Tasman River.

The temperature had dropped below freezing during the night and the low-growing Mataguri (similar to our Crown-of-Thorns) were covered in frost and ice crystals. We remained vigilant on the trail to avoid getting snagged.

We soon reached the river…

… then continued along the trail and through the break in the moraine to see the lake. It looked similar to what we had recently seen in Iceland on the other side of the globe.

Here’s a view looking up the lake at the retreating Tasman Glacier.

We backtracked from here, then headed up the west side of the lake to a higher viewpoint. About halfway up the 333 steps (I counted), it started to snow.

Up on top we had a better view of the glacier.

We rested for a bit to catch our breath and take in the view, then hiked back down to the car.

Back over the one-lane bridge to the hotel as the snow turned to rain.