Mount Aspiring National Park

The attraction of walking in the Mount Aspiring National Park

Mount Aspiring National Park encloses the southern end of the Southern Alps, the remarkable mountain range that runs down the spine of the South Island. The park is intensely mountainous and houses an unruly group of massive ranges that seem hellbent on crushing up against each other and forcing their snowy peaks ever upwards. 

New Zealand Tourism describes the park as a “dreamland of mountains, glaciers, river valleys and alpine lakes” and it’s hard to go past that. The mountains, in particular, command attention. Many of the peaks are heavily glaciated resulting in sharp summit ridges and classically shaped alpine peaks. Mount Aspiring, the highest mountain in the park at 3,083 metres is the best example of this.

The Mount Aspiring National Park borders the Fiordland National Park and, together, they form a large part of the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area. The Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks themselves covers an extraordinary 1.5 million hectares, while the World Heritage Area extends to 2.6 million hectares.

Large parts of Mount Aspiring National Park are impenetrable to all but well-equipped mountaineers, but there are a range of tracks that push up river valleys and climb the more hospitable passes. One of those tracks is the renowned Routeburn Track.

Interested in walking in the Mount Aspiring National Park?

The Routeburn Track is one of the nine multi-day walks that the New Zealand Government’s Department of Conservation (DOC) has designated as ‘New Zealand Great Walks’. It is New Zealand’s best known walk after the Milford Track. The Queenstown end of the Routeburn starts in Mount Aspiring National Park before heading south into the Fiordland National Park. Click the button below for a description of the Routeburn Track.

The Routeburn Track is just one of many Mount Aspiring National Park walks we can tell you about, and help you to plan and book. Click below to learn more.