Dawn light woke us up in in our room at The Hermitage, and we were treated to the first red rays of the sun reflecting on the snowfield at the top of Mt Cook.

We got on the Sealeys Tarn trail before 9 am. After a pleasant approach trail, the track up to the tarns is better described as thousands of steps set into a mountain ridge than a trail. 2200 steps, according to the trail guide.

So we took it slow, step by step, and stopping frequently to admire the ever improving view of Mount Cook and all the hanging glaciers on Sealey Mountain. We were passed by dozens of hikers half our age, but we didn’t care, we had all day to spend soaking up a rare sunny day in the Southern Alps. We reached the tarns by 1100 and spend some time just staring at the views of the mountains.

Terry did not want to go further, but I was eager to make it up the Mueller Hut route at least to the snow line, and Robin was game to scramble a little further up the rocky slopes. After about an hour and a hundred meters or so of climbing, we reached the soft slushy snow, a foot or so deep in places. There were plenty of avalanche tracks on the steeper snowfields, but none on the track we were following.

Several hikers coming down warned us that the snow was getting too soft to hike in. But there were enough people coming down in sneakers and without poles that I wanted to press on a little further. After all, I could see the tracks all the way up to the ridge line, and though we watched one hiker slip and fall in the snow, he didn’t slide very far. Nobody seemed to be getting into serious trouble. And there were a couple of people carving turns on skis. I was jealous,

Once we reached the solid snowfield, Robin refused to go further. We compromised: Robin would wait at the rocky knoll we had reached, and I would hike up another 100 feet or so of vertical to another rocky knoll partway up the snow field.

I miss playing in snow! And this is the month of the year I expect to start. . . . though the bright sunshine and long daylight hours did not exactly speak winter to me. So I slogged and kick stepped up to the rocks, looked longingly at the tracks up the snowfield, and keep my promise to turn around and come back.

Robin had been chatting up a kiwi woman who had hiked up all the way to a hut and regretted it, as the walk back down in the soft snow was very slippery and tough going.

We walked back down the mountains, and just sat at the tarns again, admiring the view of the mountains and watching clouds curl over the ridge, for the better part of an hour. Then we set off back down the 2200 steps to the valley. On the way down. We heard fast footsteps behind us, and we pulled aside to let the faster hikers pass. A Japanese couple were practically running down the steep steps.

“You should slow down and enjoy the mountains,” Robin suggested. “We are in a hurry to get down,” the man said. “Why?” asked Robin. “Because this mountain is a very scary place.” It turned out they had made the trip all the way up to the Mueller Hut. The woman explained, “At the top he slipped and fell, and he was almost buried in an avalanche.” They ran off ahead of us.

We took our time, and took a flat side trip to Kea Point, where we could sort of kind of see the gravelly terminus of the Mueller Glacier. We stared at the hanging glaciers on Sealey Mountain, hoping to see a bit of glacier crumble off and fall spectacularly into the valley. But we just saw a couple of little ice falls, waterfalls of crushed ice spilling over the rocks. By the time you hear the noise, it is too late to see the show.

.Terry took the car back to the hotel, but we were happy to walk on the connector trail right back to the lodge. As we neared the lodge at around six pm, we passed a young man with a light backpack on. “Is the trail to Mueller Hut open?” he asked. “Not really,” we replied, “ the last hour is soft deep snow and would be really hard going. We turned around. You are not going there . . . now?”

“Yes, I am staying in the hut tonight.” “I think you are crazy,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “Do you have poles?” “No, I don’t think I will need them.”

We pointed out that he could not get there until well after dark, and he assured us he would turn around if he felt uncomfortable. And that there was someone who knew where he was going.

Later, I wondered whether I should have given him my poles.