ASPIRING, MOUNT

mountain in the Southern Alps of west-central South Island, New Zealand. It is a pyramid-shaped peak that rises from the small Bonar, Volta, Therma, and Iso glaciers. Its four ridges reach 9,932 feet (3,027 m), with thick rain forests clothing the western slopes. Sighted and named by the explorer-surveyor John Turnbull Thomson in 1857, the peak was first scaled in 1909 by Major Bernard Head. It became the central feature of the 1,109-square-mile (2,872-square-kilometre) Mount Aspiring National Park, created in 1964 and extending south from Haast Pass to Fiordland National Park.