Crossing Tongariro

Two of our favourite English people came to join us in the North Island a short while ago – just for a long weekend, but that was just enough for what we hoped to achieve.

The timing, whilst it was centred around Labour Weekend (a public holiday), simply couldn't have been any better – the sun was shining all over the country. For once.

When we learned Si & Charl would be coming to visit, I started looking into a trip up to the middle of the North Island to Tongariro National Park. 2 weeks before they arrived, I was told there was so much snow up on the world-famous one day Tongariro Crossing tramp, that alpine conditions were in force which meant public were told they must take ice axes & crampons, and only access the crossing with a guide. “Nuts”, I thought.

When Labour Weekend rolled around, we were lucky that the weather had been a fair bit warmer and alpine conditions had finally been relaxed to open-access with no need to carry axes or crampons! “Hurrah”, I thought.

And so it was that Elinor, Si, Charl and I found ourselves heading on up to the Tongariro region on Saturday morning, once Si & Charl had met 'Ian the dog' as a possible adoptee (but that's another story entirely). We motored on up the Kapiti Coast – taking all 3 of my companions further north in Aotearoa than they had been before, and then inland past Palmerston North, and up toward Taupo. We stopped off in little old Ohakune (a bustling little ski town which accesses Ruapehu's skifields) to stock up with goodies for the mountain, and then headed on toward Whakapapa.

We had booked into a couple of cabins at Discovery Lodge which is about 4km from the trail head of the Tongariro Crossing. The environment had turned from the foresty-ness of the lower north island, to the alpine scrub, tussock land, and harakeke plains of the higher altitude we now sat at outside our cabins, looking over toward the majestic volcanic mountains of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe & Tongariro. We did what we knew best – crack open the cheese & crackers, twist off the lid of the draft beer I'd picked up in Wellington, and soak up the afternoon sunshine and prepare for what was ahead.

Discovery Lodge arranged a pick up for the next morning to take us to the trail head, whilst we cooked up Cabonara. Ahh, fine camp food!

As Discovery Lodge's bus was out of action we missed out on the 5.45am shuttle and had to jump on the 7.45am local shuttle instead... we weren't too upset about that to be honest. Although we did wake up in time for a beautiful sunrise over the Ruapehu-Tongariro mountains. So, with stomachs full of hastily prepared 2 minute noodles, we embarked on the trail of the Tongariro Crossing amongst a plethora of tussocks.

Rated as the best one day tramp in New Zealand and listed by many in the top 10 day tramps in the world, we had no plans to rush – we had stacks of food, and 2 SLR's, 4 batteries, 8 eager eye balls and about 16Gb of digital storage between us.

The first part of the walk meanders through beautiful golden brown tussock grasses, rising gently along a reasonable track toward the western lava flows. Looking back behind us, we saw Mt Taranaki rising from the plains – must've been a clear day if you can see somewhere that is about 200kms away!

The lava flows soon became evident, with craggy black forms dominating the plains in front of us. Definitely a reminder of the north island's geothermal underbelly, and given our companion's leaning toward being part of dramatic natural occurences (they've notched up floods & earthquakes so far in NZ), we thought it best to give them a little space. The lava flow plains along the Managtepopo Valley track were a beautiful sight though, and quite welcome differing landscape to our more urban lifestyle recently.

Silts, sediments & soda springs were next on the agenda before really starting the ascent – quite wiffy, but the resulting waterfall and rivulets running down the mountainside made for some great vibrant photos.

The ascent to the sadle of the Mt Tongariro & Mt Ngāuruhoe was steep and full of switchbacks. There's something quite wonderful about the seemingly endless rise toward the top of a dominating volcano though – moving 50m in one direction lets you see a little more of the mountside – then the sun rises higher and the colours change, and your head goes down for 5 minutes to crack on through and get to the top – look up and it's all switched around once more. Finally, you get to the top, look back and you get a view like this.

We had hit the snow level, so a quick re-jigging of clothing and scoffing of delectable treats ensued. Not far from the track up to the top of Mt Ngāuruhoe we sat, and watched a few brave souls go wandering off the main track in favour of the 3 hour return journey to the top. Brave as it was still covered in snow & ice, and they looked somewhat unprepared in canvas shoes & vest tops. Some would say stupid instead of brave...

Mt Ngāuruhoe: young and active
Although regarded as a separate volcano, Mt Ngāuruhoe is Tongariro’s main active vent. The remarkable symmetry of Ngāuruhoe’s steep cone is the result of regular eruptions.

Ngāuruhoe frequently belches out clouds of ash. Over 70 ash eruptions have occurred between 1839 and 1975, on average about six years apart. Eruptions of lava are less common – they have been witnessed only in 1870, 1949 and 1954.

In 1867, Māori people told the scientist and explorer James Hector that in May ash from Ngāuruhoe had covered the ground with a white dust, like snow. They said that during a previous eruption, in 1865, the Taupō district – and even the water of the lake – was covered with several inches of black dust. The showers of ash that fell into Rotoaira, a small lake between the volcano and Lake Taupō, had poisoned the fish there.

The rugged alpine scree and tussock greeted us as we wandered on toward the much-photographed red crater & emerald lakes. We'd been informed that we no longer needed crampons – but of course that doesn't mean there was no snow. So for a large part of the next 90mins walking, we happily trudged and romped across the bright white snow; some of us had thought ahead and included sunnies in our kit. El hadn't. Instead she used HAND vision – an ingenius use of the hand to block out excess sun from coming into the retina. Needless to say I was on hand to guide the blind across the snowfields, though my worrying ability to find the soft bits of snow with knee-deep holes beneath them meant we struggled our way across slowly.

The climb up to 1886m and the resulting view down into the Red Crater was simply spectacular. As it was so large it was kinda hard to properly capture with our cameras, but here's a picture I nabbed from google from the summer and mine from winter/spring.

The Red Crater was formed about 3000 years ago and lies within a scoria cone which rests on top of the older Tongairo lava flows. The red colouring is due to the presence of oxidized iron in the rock. The most recent confirmed volcanic activity from Red Crater was reported between 1855 and 1890. Exposed by erosion is the dike on the southern wall, lava would have flowed through this dike and poured into the Oturere Valley.

As we descended from the peak down to the northern facing side, we were treated to a view which was simply breathtaking; a snow-patched central crater with a series of vivid blue lakes – the Emerald Lakes.

The Emerald Lakes fill explosion craters near the summit of Mt Tongariro. Their brilliant colours are partly caused by dissolved minerals, washed down from the thermal area of nearby Red Crater.

We picked our way down the loose rock/ash slope which was part-covered in snow, and it was now I was happy I hadn't attempted this in my trail runners. That was until my boots sadly gave up the ghost in regards to my hasty super-glued repairs to the soles, and they began to slap like flip-flops for the remainder of the journey.

We took the opportunity when we got down to the Emerald Lakes, to have a mighty tasty lunch of cheese, crackers, (very garlicy) salami, and some other bits and pieces whilst looking out at geothermal vents spewing steam and a one of the beautiful lakes. Finding a spot to designate as 'the little boys room' with hundreds of fellow trampers and rugged exposed volcanic mountain-tops was an interesting one to attempt, but we managed it. The girls just sucked it up, and gave praise to the all-mighty 'lady bladder'.

The snow patched crater was the next part of the crossing; out in the open but the wind abated and it was a fantastic feeling to know we were crossing onward to the second half of the trek now. I particularly liked this photo from Si of El & I making the trip across.

As we broke out over the top of the other side of the crater we were greeted with an astounding view out over Lake Rotoaira, a hill behind it, and then a very hazy view of Lake Taupo's shoreline behind that.

Lake Taupo lies in a caldera created by a supervolcanic eruption which occurred approximately 26,500 years ago. The most recent major eruption, which occurred in 180 AD, is known as the Hatepe eruption. This was one of the most violent eruptions in the last 5,000 years; the eruption column was twice as high as the eruption column from Mount St. Helens in 1980, and the ash turned the sky red over Rome and China.

The tussock land greeted us and accompanied us back downhill toward the Ketetahi Hut where we had a pause, some chocolate-caramel slice, and were soon on our way again. Something in my knee had begun to cease up at this point, so I spent most of my time limping down the hill from here on down.

Still, you couldn't help enjoy some truly beautiful terrain, the sulphurus spews of the Ketetahi Hot Springs, and the moment that we went from blaring sunshine back under canopy cover. The bushline is well known in Aotearoa/New Zealand as a start-stop type affair; one moment you're out, then next you're in. I was grateful to get some cover and be back amongst the foresty-ness I'd been so missing down south in Wellington. Tumbling streams and stumbling trampers were with us for the rest of the way down the seemingly never-ending trail (we were cutting it fine for the bus), and BAM – we came out of the forest to the trail head where 50 or 60 trampers were strung out in various positions (mostly lying down with boots off) waiting for buses.

19.4 kms completed. We felt we should congratulate ourselves.

And so, on arrival back to Discovery, we grabbed ourselves 2 beers, a wine, and a cup of tea (bless Charl, she's so English!) and relaxed on the veranda looking out toward the area we'd just had an amazing experience amongst the volcanoes.

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