This is a fantastic overnight hike to Mueller Hut where you’ll get up close to the cheeky Kea, enjoy sweeping views around the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park and sleep in a mountain hut perched up at 1800m.
The weather will definitely be the catalyst to how your trip plays out – it can change on a dime here but also shutdown the best part of the hike – the panoramic vistas as you climb to the hut. If you don’t like a hard slog straight up for a few hours, kicking off with 1657 steep wooden stairs that are numbered, then this hike might not be for you.
Stay Overnight
You’ll start your hike to Mueller Hut from the White Horse Hill Campground or further down the road at the Aoraki/ Mount Cook National Park Visitor Centre. It’s a great overnight experience but you can easily hike to Mueller Hut, have lunch and then hike back down in a day trip.
If you want to overnight in the hut in summer then you will have to book through DOC (Department of Conversation) – it’s $NZ36 per adult and $NZ15 for youth aged 5-17 years. In the winter you still have to pay but you book directly at DOC. We ventured up early in January and there was still plenty of icy snow up the top but you didn’t need crampons or equipment. There were few people camping around the hut – one guy arrived late and perched his tent right underneath the actual stilted hut.
Stairway To Heaven
Park your car in the campground carpark and follow the signs to Mueller Hut. It’s around 10km return up to the Hut that should take you around seven hours round trip. You don’t hit the staircase straight away, it’s a gentle easy walk along a popular track out of the carpark for 10 minutes before you are faced with a steep wooden set of stairs and the number 1657 has been written at the bottom.
We overnighted and decided to take up food, wine and treats that we don’t normally take on multi-night hikes so our bags weren’t super light. Even with a day pack on – it’s a slow ascent up and it can get congested with walkers going up and those who look fresh as a daisy quickly dropping down.
Your first chance to stop and get a good look at how high you’ve climbed is at Sealy Tarns – about 1-1.5 hours after leaving the campground. We were hiking up in misty rain so not much to see and it was cold. Despite it being mid summer – we took plenty of warm clothes and wet weather gear. Winter is a whole different walk – DOC recommend you have a good level of mountaineering experience as you’ll be likely walking on ice and snow. So you’ll need an ice axe and crampons plus have plenty of experience route finding and using an avalanche transceiver, probe and shovel.
After Sealy Tarns you leave the stairs behind and head up a steep grassy section that zig zags through boulders and rock before you eventually emerge to the top of the ridge line. From there the track turns in towards the hut where you are negotiating a path through rock following the orange markers and as you see the hut there’s a bit of snow and ice to get through too.
Room With A View
Mueller is a 28-bed hut that sits on stilts with two outdoor toilets a short walk from the hut. A summer evening at the hut was pretty magical after all the day trippers had finally left and those sleeping overnight sat outside watching the sun set and taking numerous pictures of New Zealand’s highest peak Mt Cook (3724m). Some kids even dragged out their plastic pack liners and did a bit of impromptu slow sledding just outside.
Then the cheeky band of neighbourhood Kea showed up an attempted to tear off the antenna on the hut roof or they looked to steal anything that had been left out to dry on the hut deck. They’re amusing to watch – just don’t feed them and don’t get too close with your camera or phone because they WILL steal it.
There’s gas stoves in the hut and solar lighting but it was pretty cold up there and a lot of hikers hit their sleeping bags early for the warmth. If you’re going overnight – here’s some ideas on what to take.
