Depot Creek Falls, Haast Valley, Mt Aspiring National Park

Mt Aspiring National Park covers the Southern Alps from Westland National Park in the north to Fiordland National Park in the south, containing some of New Zealand’s most dramatic alpine landscapes. Some of New Zealand’s highest mountains are here and the highest peak, Mt Aspiring, rises to over 3000 metres.

While many of the Park’s mountains are presently flanked by numerous icefields and glaciers, glaciers were much more widespread in past ice ages when hundreds of them gouged out enormous deep valleys throughout the Southern Alps. Following the end of each ice age these great glaciers retreated to leave behind systems of deep, wide U-shaped valleys, many of which have become ‘hanging valleys’ that terminate up to several hundred metres above the larger valleys that they are tributary to.

The Haast Valley in Mt Aspiring National Park is a large glacial valley fed by numerous hanging valleys. Picturesque waterfalls cascade down sheer rock walls where these tributaries terminate high above the main valley floor, while the floors of other hanging valleys have been eroded down by streams channels to form short, steep gorges containing numerous low cataracts. This photograph shows the waterfall at the exit of Depot Creek, a small stream originating from a hanging valley that terminates above the lower reaches of the Haast Valley.