BAZflyer: Cloud Piecer

Alpine mountains, at this time of the year all cloaked in pristine white snow, dominate the landscape surrounding Twizel. Visibly sentinel above all is New Zealand’s highest peak, Mount Cook at 12,218 feet (3,724 metres). History attributes the first sighting of this pointed peak to the British explorer, Captain James Cook in 1767. However, long before that time it had been indelibly imbedded in Māori myth as Aoraki, meaning the “Cloud Piecer”.

The first known ascent of Aoraki occurred on Christmas Day 1894. Sixteen years later in December 1910, Freda Du Faur an Australian, became the first woman to ascend the mountain. Aoraki Mount Cook and its surrounding peaks were also the training grounds of famous New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary. Hillary went on to be the first person in the world to summit Mount Everest successfully. and in recent years Aoraki Mount Cook has gone on to challenge hundreds more ambitious mountaineers.

Aoraki is considered a technically challenging mountain. Since the early 20th century, about 80 people have died attempting to climb the mountain, making it New Zealand's deadliest peak. Many more have died climbing in the locality and hardly a season goes by without at least one fatality.

Beginning from the late 1960’s helicopters have beneficially been used to save many lives on Aoraki Mount Cook. A few such missions in the early seventies involved RNZAF Huey (UH-1) helicopters some of them flown at the time by Bazflyer1. In later years Bazflyer1 could also have been spotted flying AS350 and AS355 helicopters around the “Cloud Piecer” with tourists onboard.

The “Cloud Piecer” bathed in sunset pastel as viewed across Lake Pukaki