Two Mount Cook hikes: the easy one and the hard one

At Aoraki/Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, we did two very different hikes in one day, and between them they cover almost everyone who comes here. One is flat and easy and unmissable. The other is brutal and entirely optional.

The easy one is the Hooker Valley track. It is mostly flat, runs along a river over a series of swinging suspension bridges, and ends at a glacial lake with Mt Cook standing at the far end and small icebergs floating in the foreground. Almost anyone can walk it, and almost everyone should. We had a picnic by the lake and could have stayed all afternoon.

The hard one is the Mueller Hut Route, and it does not pretend otherwise: relentless steep climbing, over a vertical kilometre of it. We set off at 8am in low cloud and climbed up through it into sunshine, with Mt Cook, the glaciers and the lakes opening up below us, just wow.

We did not finish it. We reached a steep, exposed section, looked at each other, agreed the views were not going to get dramatically better, and turned around. No shame in it. Knowing when a hike has given you its best is part of the skill, and the walk back down to do the Hooker Valley felt like a reward, not a retreat.

So if you have a day at Mt Cook: do the Hooker Valley no matter what, it is one of the best easy walks anywhere. Take on the Mueller Hut climb only if you want to suffer for your views, and feel free to turn around when it has shown you enough.