Tongariro Crossing

The first camping reservation I made was for the Whakapapa Holiday Park in Tongariro National Park. We had wanted to hike the Tongariro Crossing but the April rains washed out any chance. Our reservation was for the nites of December 31 and January 1. This means we were able to start out 2011 with a really big hike. The crossing is 19.4km or about 13 miles. It is a point to point hike; this means you are required to book a shuttle to both get you to the starting point and pick you up at the end. Our shuttle left the campground at 7am. We always want to get an early start to avoid the heat of the day. This was really important on the crossing because the first half is a steady climb and you are exposed almost the entire time.

We started out way overdressed; long-sleeved base layer, t-shirt, fleece shirt and a jacket. The outer two layers quickly came off. The base layer came off at the soda springs toilet stop. From here the real climbing began. The elevation gain to South Crater was 340m. Lots of this was on steps the DOC had put in to minize trail damage. At the foot of the first stairs was a sign with a big STOP. It told you to consider if you were indeed ready to do the hike. I was pretty sure I had enough clothing, water and food and that the weather today was just about perfect. The 3rd item was to assess your fitness level. I did and the needle hovered just above deplorable. It did bounce up a bit into the very marginal category so I thought we could go on. Getting to South Crater was no breeze, but I made it with frequent stops. Once at the crater we had great a great view of Mt Ngauruhoe (try and pronounce that). Its an almost symmetrical cone. Climbing it was optional – no not for us, for those younger and in lots better shape. For me getting to south crater was a challenge and the real climbing was only beginning. We got to walk about a 1km flat stretch across the crater floor and then the trail looked to go straight up. There were a lot of people hiking so there was a long line snaking up an impossible distance above me. It was good the stop sign wasn't posted here as I had just barely made it up a far easier grade and the stretch to Red Crater was not only steeper it also was either a scramble over rocks or a slippery scree slope. I picked out the 2 people (both overweight women) that looked least likely to make it and did my best to match their pace. One of them would pass me, take several more stops and stop. I would stumble slightly ahead, stop and try to catch my breath. This made me reconsider my strategy of saving up my exercise minutes for use on hikes like this. There may be something to this idea of a little bit of physical activity on a regular basis. No matter now, I just kept those 2 women in range and continued to shuffle forward. Fortunately Melodee waited for me so I had someone to complain, no make that talk to.

After what seemed an eternity and only took a bit more than the information piece's 1 hour estimate we finally broke over the crest and could see the other side. This other side had steam rolling out of the ground – it was the Valley of Mordor. Here a second side trip took over to climb Mt Tongariro. I was more interested in eating M&Ms and the fruit bar and somehow had enough strength to open both packages.

The good news was that the climbing was over; the bad news was the the descent to Emerald Lakes looked to be just a bit off straight down and nothing but scree. Here the law of big numbers came into play. Put enough hikers on any trail over the years and they will tear up the ground to the point it is like a big sand pile. We skidded down this stretch just like you go down a sand dune and in no time at all we got down to Emerald Lake and more fumaroles. Melodee had take a hard spill at the top and had a pretty good cut. Good thing that Oesa had loaned us her first aid kit. I patched her up; that is I cleaned the would and put a band aid on it and we moved on across another crater. Lava flows were all around us. The DOC had helpfully put out warnings that pointed out you were likely in danger if there were flying rocks. New Years Day all was calm and we made it to the foot of the last climb. Even though it was shorter and less steep, I made a really big deal out of the effort required and kept up a steady stream of moaning the whole 10 minutes it took to reach this last summit. From it the central plateau of NZ opened up in front of us. We could see all the way to Lake Taupo.

At this point we were about ½ way so it was about a 6 ½ mile downhill to the Ketatahi Car Park. Now going up is really hard work and makes my lungs burn, but going down can do some real damage to your knees and probably other parts of your body. Right now all I could think of was how much my knees were going to hurt. Along the way we came really close to a fumarole, steam coming right out of the ground and a really bad smell. It was a hot day, but walking near this steam vent was really hot.

About 4km from the finish the trail made a sharp turn, went down 5 steps and someone went from chaparral to rain forest instantaneously. It was really amazing. Suddenly there were birds singing, trees, ferns and humidity. It was if we had been walking thru the desert, turned a corner and were transported to the BVIs.

The pickups were scheduled at 3, 4 and 5. We had targeted the earliest to give us time to simply sit in camp and try to recover. Somehow we actually made it by 3 and by 3:30 we were back in our camp chairs. This overlooks the agony we had getting up off the bus seats and negotiating the bus steps but we were happy and pleased that we were able to make it.