In May 2017, I undertook a 4-days expedition to Tasman Glacier in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. This has been a place I wanted to go in for quite a long time. Our trip started by taking a helicopter fly landed near Tasman Saddle Hut. Then we traversed across a large glacier ground and successfully climbed to the 2834 m peak of Hochstetter Dome in the Tasman Glacier head. The next day, after completing my morning photography in Tasman Saddle, we walked to the 2460 m Kelman Hut. Then our following activities in Tasman Glacier used this hut as our base. On the last day of this trip, we tried to climb to the 2699 m peak of Mt Aylmer, but not successful due to the broken dangerous route with many hidden crevasses.
While Tasman Glacier is one of the classic alpine mountaineering play grounds in the Southern Alps, some fatal accidents were reported in this area. For example, an accident happened in 2013 just above Tasman Saddle Hut, which led an experienced climber died.
Click
here to see the report.
This image shows the east face of Mount Cook, which has been rarely photographed before, because it can only be viewed from Tasman Glacier at the height of 2300 m.