Where is Mount Cook National Park?

Cook Mountain National Park is located in the midwest of South Island, New Zealand. It is a long and narrow park, 64 kilometers long and only 20 kilometers at its narrowest point, covering an area of 700 square kilometers. It starts from the Arthur Pass in the south and meets the main ridge in the west, and is located in the middle of the most spectacular scenery in southern alps. Snow covers the park13 all the year round, with snow peaks one after another. There are 15 peaks over 3000 meters, among which Mount Cook stands in the middle, with an altitude of 3764 meters, which is the highest peak in New Zealand and is known as the "roof of New Zealand".

Mount Cook is famous in New Zealand. It is the highest peak in China and the second peak in Oceania, not only because of its high mountain height, but also because of its special geological history. According to the research of archaeologists, Mount Cook still sank to the bottom of the sea 65.438+0.5 billion years ago, and the crust began to build mountains 65.438+0 billion years ago. After a long time, the alternating action of uplift and erosion, coupled with the erosion of glaciers, has caused today's landforms and topography and become a brand-new zone. The most interesting thing is the change of the vertical zone of its vegetation. Below 900 meters above sea level is the mountain forest belt, where the forest is dense and there are many rabbits and antelopes, which is an ideal place for mountaineering and hunting. 900 ~ 1300 meters is a subalpine zone, where there are forests, grasslands, shrubs and exposed rocks; 1300 ~1850m is subalpine grassland; 1850 ~ 2150m is a subalpine forest belt with exposed rocks; Above 2150m above sea level, it belongs to the alpine zone, where nothing grows, only black rocks crisscross the snow and ice, and there are many glaciers and waterfalls in the mountains.

There is also a fairy tale about the formation of Cook Mountain, a local indigenous Maori. It is said that the children of the heavenly father and the earth mother turned to stone when they visited the world. These stones later became some prominent peaks of Mount Cook and southern alps. However, from a geological point of view, the rugged watershed of the South Island of New Zealand was actually formed after the Pacific Ocean, India and Oceania were constantly impacted and eroded by the earth's crust. This constant collision forms the landscape of Mount Cook National Park. In memory of British navigator Cook, it was renamed on 185 1. In this land, there are 27 high mountains over 3000 meters in New Zealand, and there are 140 peaks over 2000 meters. The weather here is as unforgettable as the scenery. It should be sunny and clear in Wan Li, but it may be windy in a blink of an eye. The annual rainfall in lowlands is about 4200mm, but in mountainous areas, due to the influence of ice and snow, the annual rainfall can reach 5000mm.

There are snow-capped mountains, glaciers, rivers, lakes, forests, animals and plateau vegetation in Cook Mountain National Park, which gives people surprises that are incomparable in other places. The peak of Mount Cook, which stands at the top of the peaks, is covered with snow all year round, while many glaciers are hidden in the valleys of the mountains. Among them, Tasman Glacier is about 29 kilometers long, 2 kilometers wide and 600 meters deep. Inside the glacier, because of its movement, the gravel with mountains falls down and the sun shines, so that countless cracks and ice towers are formed on the surface of the glacier, with different shapes and dazzling. One side of Mount Cook is dark, with mountains and peaks, and the high slopes are covered with snow.

Not far from the east side of Mount Cook, there are two quiet and beautiful lakes, one called Pukaki Lake and the other called Taikapu Lake. The background of these two lakes is Mount Cook and the surrounding peaks. The lake comes from glaciers, and the water is blue with milky white, crystal clear as jade, flat and clean as a mirror. By the lake in Pukaki, there is a small church and a sculpture of a sheepdog. They all waited quietly by the lake, recording the story here. Blue sky, white clouds, snow-capped mountains, blue lakes, green Yuan Ye and mountains, colorful flowers, no one, only the wind of nature blows over people's ears.