This morning the weather looked like shit so I stayed (and paid another $15). The rain turned to showers so I hiked up to the Hooker glacier terminal. The path is 1 foot deep in the middle and sometimes it's full of water. The walk was wet but no problem in my synchilla [what I used to call 'fleece' for god-knows what reason...] & shorts. The trail went over two suspension bridges and for the first time [in NZ] I saw rivers with silt in them. One hour up the trail is a little hut (shelter) you can stay in. at the glacier terminal, the river just "begins" from the ice. It looks like an arctic harbor because of the iceberg-like chunks floating in the water.

Yesterday I finished Tai-Pan and today I got panicky with nothing to read so I rushed out to the gift shop in the hermitage and got "War and Remembrance" by Herman Wouk ($17.95). It's over 1,100 pages and has small print. It's almost as thick as it is wide. I'm set.

I guess they say that the day I arrived at Mt. Cook (5 Feb) was the last day of a string of nice ones. It's still warm when it rains but the winds are really strong and with all the high clouds, you can't see much. As long as it's not too wet tomorrow and as long as the wind doesn't change, I don't care how strong it is because it will shoot me out those 60 km that were so tough coming in.

Training Diary Comments: Showers & stormy. Hiked for 3 hrs.

Hike to Hooker Glacier Terminal at Mt. Cook
Mt. Cook from visitor's center	Mt. Cook from visitor's center
Mt. Cook	Mt. Cook
river from Hooker Glacier	Hooker Glacier
Hooker Glacier