Blue Lakes

Blue Lakes is a small group of alpine ponds beside the Tasman Valley tracks. The first pond is reached by a short side path, with green water in a rocky basin below steep, shrub-covered slopes. The name is a holdover from when the pools really were blue.

Start at Blue Lakes car park and follow the stepped track uphill to the marked side path. A sign at the car park points to the lakes in about 10 minutes; the branch reaches the first pond and continues through scrub to a smaller second one. The mapped group has three ponds; the described side path reaches the first and a smaller second, not a circuit of all three. The combined outing is listed at 40 minutes return and 100 metres of height gain covers the combined Blue Lakes and Tasman Glacier View outing, not just the pond detour.

When the lakes were named in the mid-1800s, turquoise meltwater from Haupapa / Tasman Glacier seeped through the moraine to feed them. The glacier no longer supplies them; rainwater now feeds the pools and supports green algae. A panel explaining the color change sits farther up the climb, near the glacier viewpoint.

The ponds are a close-up stop beside the track. Keep climbing to the separate moraine-wall lookout for the broad view over lower Haupapa / Tasman Glacier, Tasman Lake, icebergs and the mountains at the valley head. Tasman Lake is the much larger terminal lake below the glacier, not one of the Blue Lakes.

From the first pond's shore path, look for a reflection of the surrounding peaks when the water is still. The green surface and rocky edge make the color change part of the picture; the bigger glacier panorama is farther up the track.