Hi Peter,
Arthurs Pass is a corner of New Zealand I know well. I have stayed there on numerous occasions and I know how dramatic the weather can be. On one occasion I was walking with a group of friends on a track in sunny warm weather, only to be stuck in our hut three hours later with a couple of inches of snow on the ground! I have also been part of the (in)famous Coast to Coast event that has New Zealand’s fittest (or craziest) athletes crossing this region in a little over 11 hours. That includes a 36-kilometre run over this terrain, (though fortunately I was smart enough to let my team mate do that bit for me – I think we took closer to 20 hours!)
Anyway, there is no doubt that there is a mountain of drama within this landscape. The challenge for any photographer though is capturing it.
With this image I think you have definitely caught some of the mood of the mountains. The only thing that I want to change though, is the bright foreground in the lower left of the picture. As with any bright area of a picture, the eye is likely to be drawn to this area first, and if that part of the picture is dragging attention away from the actual hero elements of the image, you need to do something about it.
My hunch is that in batch processing some of the RAW images, you have let this part of the scene get too bright.
The fix should be rather simple; go back to your original file for this corner of the picture, pull back the exposure a little and then have another go at stitching the panorama.
Otherwise, great image.
cheers, Anthony