We watched a piece of ice break off the mountain ahead and then crash down into the valley throwing up a lot of snow spraying through the air like dust. And only then, the sound of the avalanche reached us. It was amazing to realize how ‘slow’ sound travels.
We arrived the day before in Twizel, the heart of the Mackenzie Basin and our base for hikes around Aoraki/Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s tallest mountain. No rain was predicted but gale-force winds with gusts above 40 knots.
That didn’t stop us from sticking to our plan and doing the very touristy but scenic hike to Hooker Lake at the base of the mountain. After a quick breakfast, we were on the road before 9 am and as soon as we hit the highway out of town, we saw the beauty.