NZ-tongariro death march

From Waitomo, we drove off to National Park to hike the famous Tongariro Crossing. As we approached, our usual north island scenery of rolling green hills were punctuated by a few snow-topped mountains and one ominous black volcano. We later learned this was a film site for some of the Mt. Doom scenes in LOTR. We were quite excited to learn we would be hiking around it!

We stayed in Howard's Lodge, which also conveniently provides transport to the Tongariro hike. The weather in the morning of our hike looked poor with low heavy clouds which seemed ready to rain at any moment. However, as we approached the trail, the sun came out and we were excited about the great views we'd see!

Our hike started in alpine brush, slowly giving way to alpine desert as we hiked up the pass between 2 old volcanoes, Tongariro and Narahwhoe. Once at the saddle, we rested a bit and then spent some time figuring out if we wanted to, and had time for, a side trek up Mt Narawhoe.

Our dilemma stemmed from a simple question of time. The buses have a fixed time they take you to the trail and when they pick you up. The trail normally takes 6 to 8 hours. The 2 side treks up either volcano each take about 2 hours based on the trail map we had, and we were told Narawhoe had great views. So we figured it would be doable but tight. However, what threw us for a loop was that when we actually arrived at the pass, a sign stated it was a 3 hour side trek, which translated to at least a 9 hour hike!!! Guaranteed to make us arrive late to the bus pickup location...

Well, there we talked to a young Irish couple that was on our bus and looked like regular hikers. They decided to go up, so we figured there was strength un numbers! So up we went.

This slowly turned out to be a challenging side trip. The higher we went, the steeper we got and the more scree we found. This loose rock/pebble combo made us feel like we were taking 1 step backward for each step forward. However, we pushed on and made it to the top for some amazing views for miles in every direction. Not only that, we also saw the Narawhoe volcano crater!

We spent a few minutes to enjoy the views and take a small break. I (Xavier) practically jumped my way down the scree since it seemed like I was sliding down anyway!

We hiked up the next part to Red Crater, the highest part of the trail, and stopped for lunch. There we talked to the Irish couple and realized we were way behind schedule. It was nearly 2 PM, with 1.5 to 2 hours to Ketati Hut. Our bus driver said we needed to be at that hut by 2 PM to safely make it back down to the trail end by 4:30, our pickup time! Oops...

We quickly finished lunch and started our afternoon speed hike. We passed the Emerald Lakes, named for the sulphurey minerals that color the water. These were an incredible sight of deep green, albeit the smell. We started our descent through more alpine brush and arrived at Ketati Hut. We had made it there a little after 3 PM, just 1:10 hours of hiking. OK, at our rate I was hoping we'd make it by 5!

We took a short break to fill up on water. Did I forget to mention we didn't bring enough? Hmm, that was because I didn't plan on our 2.5 hour side trip and our speed-hiking pace! Luckily I knew the hut was enroute.

From the hut, the alpine brush continued until we got a lot lower, when the trail moved into the familiar NZ fern&tree rainforest. By now we had sped by quite a few packs of hikers. Nearly at the end, or so we hoped, we ran into 2 Chinese girls who thought they were lost. We told them they were on the right path and then they tried to keep up with us for fear of getting lost again! I told them to take it easy since we were running to catch our bus... 10 minutes later we got to the trail end, whew! We got to the bus only 10 minutes late! In hindsight, the views were well worth the adventure....