The Hooker River is a river in the

Southern Alps The Southern Alps (; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) is a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The name "Southern ...

of New Zealand. It flows south from

Hooker Lake Hooker Lake is a proglacial lake that started to form in the late 1970s by the recent retreat of the Hooker Glacier. It is in the Hooker Valley, in the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand's South Island, just south of Aoraki / Mo ...

, the glacier lake of Hooker Glacier, which lies on the southern slopes of

Aoraki / Mount Cook Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height, as of 2014, is listed as . It sits in the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite ...

. After 3 kilometers, it flows through Mueller Glacier Lake, gathering more glacial water, before joining the braided streams of the

Tasman River The Tasman River is an alpine braided river flowing through Canterbury, in New Zealand's South Island. The river's headwaters are in Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park, where it is the outflow of the proglacial Tasman Lake. It is also fed by the ...

, also an outflow of a glacier lake.

Etymology

The geographic Hooker items were named by the Canterbury provincial geologist,

Julius von Haast Sir Johann Franz Julius von Haast (1 May 1822 – 16 August 1887) was a German-born New Zealand explorer, geologist, and founder of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. Early life Johann Franz Julius Haast was born on 1 May 1822 in Bo ...

, after the English botanist

William Jackson Hooker Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew he ...

Description

The Hooker River drains both the Hooker and Mueller Glaciers and is the principal ablation outlet for these ice masses. Its water is a milky bluish light grey due to the suspended glacial

rock flour Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspe ...

in the water. Hooker River along transports of sediment per year. The entire run of Hooker River is within the

Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is in the South Island of New Zealand. Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, and the eponymous village lie within the park. The area was gazetted as a national park in October 1953 and consists ...

and easily accessible, as it flows through the flat Hooker Valley, the main tourism area of the park. The river is bridged three times by the pedestrian suspension bridges along the

Hooker Valley Track The Hooker Valley Track is the most popular short walking track within the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand. At only length and gaining only about in height, the well formed track can be walked by tourists with a wide range of ...

, the most popular walking track in the area. A further track leads further downstream along the river to Tasman Valley Road, which crosses Hooker River on a small one lane road bridge just as the river enters the Tasman Valley.

References

Rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park Rivers of New Zealand {{CanterburyNZ-river-stub

Etymology

Description

See also

References