Aoraki/Mount Cook statistics: height, glaciers, visitors and climbing deaths

Aoraki/Mount Cook is 3,724 metres (12,218 feet) high, according to high-accuracy GPS readings taken by a University of Otago expedition on 23 November 2013¹. The survey team’s results, published on 26 January 2014, matched aerial-photo calculations from a 2008 survey, and Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) said it would use the new height in its online data and maps. The Department of Conservation (DOC) gives the same 3,724 m height today².

Before the resurvey the official height was 3,754 metres (12,316 feet), a figure estimated from aerial photographs taken just after the summit collapsed on 14 December 1991¹. The new GPS measurement was only the sixth accurate survey of the mountain’s height from the ground, after trigonometric surveys in 1851, 1879, 1881, 1883 and 1889. To respect Aoraki’s tapu status, agreed with Ngāi Tahu, the climbers took their readings a few metres below the true summit rather than standing on it.

Aoraki/Mount Cook is still New Zealand’s highest mountain, 227 m (745 ft) taller than the second highest, Rarakiroa/Mount Tasman, which has an official height of 3,497 m (11,473 ft)¹.

There are 19 peaks over 3,000 metres (9,840 feet) in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, including Aoraki/Mount Cook itself, according to DOC².

The park was declared a national park in 1953, though its core was first protected in 1885, and in 2004 it covered 70,728 hectares (707 km², or 273 square miles)⁶. It is part of Te Wāhipounamu – South West New Zealand World Heritage Area². DOC records more than 300 species of plants in the park, including the Mount Cook lily (Ranunculus lyallii), the largest buttercup in the world, and about 40 species of birds, among them the kea, an alpine parrot.

Tasman Lake covered 5.96 square kilometres (2.3 square miles) in May 2008 and was up to about 240 metres (790 feet) deep, according to a peer-reviewed study of satellite images published in 2011⁷.

The lake at the end of the Tasman Glacier began forming in 1974 and has grown steadily since; it is now large enough for commercial boat and kayak tours⁸. Between 2000 and 2008 the glacier’s front retreated by up to about 3.7 km⁷.

The water is typically about 3 °C (37 °F), and DOC warns visitors to stay out of the lake and off it when it freezes in winter⁸.

More than 100,000 people visited the Hooker Valley Track, the park’s most popular attraction, in the 2023/24 financial year, according to DOC⁴. In 2019/20 it drew 101,500 visits, roughly one in ten of the village’s 1.08 million⁹.

The track is 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) return from White Horse Hill car park to Hooker Lake¹¹, and DOC suggests allowing 3–4 hours². A new 189-metre (620-foot) suspension bridge over the Hooker River, the longest in New Zealand, opened in July 2026, replacing a swing bridge closed by riverbank erosion¹¹³. DOC says the track is busiest between 10 am and 4 pm⁴.

Parking at White Horse Hill costs NZ$2.50 per half hour or NZ$25 a day, and is free if you arrive and leave within 20 minutes (October 2026)¹¹. During a seven-month paid parking pilot, the car park raised NZ$826,739 from 56,438 transactions, the most of the three pilot sites, and DOC has kept the charges³. By our calculation that is an average of NZ$14.65 per transaction, and 55% of the NZ$1,511,574 raised across all three sites.

The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve covers 4,367 square kilometres (1,686 square miles), taking in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and the Mackenzie Basin, according to the reserve¹³. That is about six times the size of the national park.

The reserve was created in 2012 with accreditation from DarkSky International, the third such reserve recognised in the world¹³. It is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and the third largest in the world, and its night skies rate Bortle class 2, close to pristine. It includes Lake Tekapo, the Godley Valley and Lake Pūkaki (Pukaki).