Caroline Hut Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park

Last week the team at Sony NZ were nice enough to lend me a new camera and super wide-angle lens that I am thinking about buying, so I knew I would need to test them out somewhere special. As always, my first thought was to head to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. I wanted to get as close to Mt. Cook as possible to really see what the new 12-24 2.8 Sony lens was like. I decided to head up the Ball Pass Route since it would give me some amazing close-up views of the Caroline Face of Mt. Cook. I packed up the new camera and lens, ice axe, crampons, camping gear and a couple of days’ worth of food and drove up from Wanaka to the Tasman Lake trailhead to start the route.

I had heard that the route to Ball Pass was quite tricky since the washout of the moraine at Husky Flat. Once I got to the flat and saw the drop-off where the road used to be I navigated up through the scree until I found a spot to cross over and gained the trail through the forest. The small detour took me about an hour to go up and around and get back to the Ball Hut track on the other side of the slip. I continued along the trail which was washed out in a few places, and I had to backtrack and climb a bit higher over some of the washouts. Once I got to the Ball Hut I refilled my water and started climbing the Ball Ridge towards the Caroline Hut. The route is not well marked, there were occasional cairns, and I lost the trail quite a few times and had to backtrack and find a new route up. It ended up taking about seven hours including all the backtracking and detours from the carpark to where I set camp on the ridge just before the Caroline Hut. The hike took longer than I expected so I ended up taking sunset photos before I even set up my tent. I was able to get some nice shots of the upper Tasman Glacier. After sunset I finally set up my tent and cooked dinner at 11pm and turned in for the night.

After a sleepless night listening to avalanches crashing down on the mountains around me, I got up at 4:30am for sunrise. Even though there were no clouds, the alpenglow that lit up the top of Aoraki looked amazing and I was able to capture a few nice images while watching the avalanches cascade down the Caroline Face. After sunrise I broke camp and walked over to the Caroline Hut to resupply with water so that I wouldn’t have to melt snow. I ended up hanging out at the hut for a few hours debating about staying another day or hiking back down. I checked the weather once more and saw that some rain was coming in the next day and decided that the safest option was to head back down to the car. I took the shortcut route down from the hut which was much steeper, but a more established trail with ladders and ropes. After a few hours I was back on the Ball Hut track and just had to go back up over the slip at Husky Flat then out to the car.

Next time I would allow more time and take the shortcut up to the Caroline Hut and hopefully get a bit further up to Ball Pass, but overall, the views were amazing even though my legs were not happy with me the next day. I hope you enjoy the photos from my Caroline Hut trip, and thanks again to Sony for lending me the a7R IV and wide-angle lens. If you would like to see my photography in person, you can visit us at the Cory Marshall Gallery in Queenstown at 1-7 Earl Street.