Mount Aspiring / Tititea

Mount Aspiring / Tititea is New Zealand's highest mountain outside the Aoraki / Mount Cook region.DescriptionSet within Otago's Mount Aspiring National Park, it has a height of 3033m. Māori named it Tititea, which translates as Glistening Peak. It was named in December 1857 by the Chief Surveyor for the Otago Province, John Turnbull Thomson. It is also often called 'the Matterhorn of the South,' for its pyramidal peak when seen from the Matukituki River. The first ascent was on 23 November 1909 by Major Bernard Head and guides Jack Clarke and Alec Graham. Head's party climbed to the summit ridge by the west face from the Bonar Glacier, a route not repeated until 1965.Mount Aspiring / Tititea sits slightly to the west of the main divide, 30 kilometres west of Lake Wanaka. It lies at the junction of three major glacial systems — the Bonar Glacier, which drains into the Waipara River, and the Volta and Therma Glaciers, which both drain into the Waitoto River. The Waipara is a tributary of the Arawhata River, and both the Arawhata and Waitoto Rivers flow out to the west coast in between Haast and Jackson Bay.