Aspiring has attracted stories of triumph and tragedy, sometimes involving the same characters.
The Colin Todd Hut, completed in 1960 and replaced in 1996, is one of the best-used climbing bases in Mt Aspiring National Park.
The construction history - including how two tonnes of materials were airdropped to the wrong place and had to be hauled from the Therma Glacier back to the hut's present position - is well documented.
But who was the man the hut memorialises? Dunedin alpinist Colin MacDonald Todd packed more into his 28 years than most young men of his era, his sister Fiona Todd believes.
The oldest of Bruce and Eleanor Todd's five children, Colin Todd was born in Alexandra and would have been 82 if he had survived to celebrate this weekend's Mt Aspiring centenary.
He and his siblings Elespie, Andrew, and twins Fiona and Ione, were raised at Glenshee Station in the Maniototo, before the family moved to a farm near Palmerston in 1947, and about two years later, to Dunedin.
Miss Todd, a retired primary schools science adviser for the Otago region, was just 16 when her adventurer brother died in a motorcycle accident in 1955.
"I used to hang on to what he said, a bit.
He just felt a real bond to the mountains and there was very obviously a spiritual dimension there.
But not naturistic or anything like that.
I guess it was creationist; an appreciation of creation," Miss Todd said this week.
Colin Todd was a leader in his peer group and would bring home many interesting people to the family home in Ravensbourne.
Housing was in short supply in the postwar era, and all five children were still living with their parents, despite three being adults.
But it was a happy house and Colin Todd's death was a devastating blow.
"He was coming home for dinner as usual, after the week of research and teaching.
There was a fellow on his bike in front.
He weaved around and a bus was coming the other way.
He (the cyclist) was OK but Colin wasn't," she said.
Given the calculated risks he took in the mountains, it seemed so frustratingly preventable.
Now, it would be debated whether a motorcycle helmet might have made a difference, but by the standards of the day, helmets were not frequently worn, Miss Todd said.
Colin Todd worshipped at St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin.
He loved singing and was a member of a highly regarded University of Otago choir, Miss Todd recalled.
He was also a Romantic idealist, something his climbing companion and obituarist Larry Harrington noted in the 1955 New Zealand Alpine Journal.
Miss Todd laughed as she read out Dr Harrington's description of her brother.
"That is absolutely accurate.
He loved Brahms and music like that," she said.
Dr Harrington also noted Colin Todd looked for fine qualities in others and did not hide his disappointment if it was lacking.
Miss Todd laughs again, with warm affection.
"I can still remember he had quite an aquiline nose and if we didn't quite measure up, there would be this kind of a snort," she said.
Colin Todd was an active member of the Otago section of the New Zealand Alpine Club and first climbed Mt Aspiring in 1951.
His interest in the outdoors was sparked by his father, who explored the Olivines in the 1930s.
Growing up on a farm, climbing the local cliffs, mustering and cycling more than 15 miles to school in Kyeburn also whetted his appetite for the outdoors.
He attended Lincoln College for two years, from the age of 16, before going to Otago University.
He became the country's first master of science graduate in biochemistry in 1951 and was appointed a senior lecturer.
He had almost completed his PhD when he died.
In 1954, he was a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club's Himalaya expedition and made a noted first ascent of Baruntse (7129m) and accomplished two other climbs over 6000m.
He then joined the Oxford Expedition to west Nepal.
"He is remembered as using every moment: photographing flowers on the march, climbing to viewpoints for compass bearings for later map-making, having long slow conversations with sherpas, joining in village circle-dances and songs and every night writing his experiences in a diary, before settling to sleep with a few tunes played softly on a mouth organ," Dr Harrington wrote.
Colin Todd's contribution to the New Zealand Alpine Club included map-making, hut-building, search and rescue, instruction courses and exploration.
He did not marry.
"He was a bit of perfectionist.
And an incredibly careful climber.
Taking risks but calculated risks.
I remember discussing these with him and he wouldn't hesitate to call off a climb if it was too dangerous," Miss Todd said.
