Mueller Hut
Mueller Hut Route is a hike near Aoraki (Mount Cook) that was recommended by a friend. It’s again a straight up then straight down hike, but this time the hike is interesting (compared to Roys Peak)and has a hut at top.
I started this hike by camping overnight near Aoraki Village. The trail goes straight up the side of a mountain and will have the sun beating down on it - so I decided to head out at 6:30am and get as much of the steep part of the hike before the sun comes up. My plantar fasciitis was playing up and hurting quite a lot, so it took me longer to get out of bed and get moving than I thought.
The trail is straight up. The first 500m is stairs snaking up the mountain. The next 500m is working up the slope over rocks and grass, followed by boulders and scree. Fortunately the sun takes a bit longer to hit the trail because it’s behind another mountain. This meant I got to about 650m in elevation before the sun hit. I also got to see an amazing sunrise.
At the top you hit the ridge which goes around the “back” and up towards the hut. This is all big rocks and amazing views. It also was, very, very windy and the temperature dropped dramatically. Once you’ve gotten up to that its a view of mountains, glaciers and just amazing scenery.
There were bunches of Kea flying around and they were very cool to see.
The hut looks like a great place to stay, however it seems to get booked quite far in advance and I didn’t have chance to book that, so made it into a day trip.
Going up there were only a few other people on the hike, which was lovely. On the way down it got more and more crowded the further down I went with more and more people coming up. Recommend doing it early to avoid the crowds.
Note that the Department of Conservation guidance is 10-12 hours return. I got to the top, looked around and got back to the campsite in under 5 hours. Perhaps a lot of people do this trail unprepared physically and lacking the right gear so they use guidance to give people more realistic ideas of the trail.
Would recommend and do again.