So on to Tongoriro - aka - Mount Doom from the Rings. Dave, Sprokett and Heather all highly recommended this trip. It’s a full day tramp (Kiwi term for hike) covering 17kms and reaching a height of 1900m, where you can climb up Mt Doom. This section is part of a 4-day tramp, which covers the whole national park. We’re only crazy enough to do 1 day, not insane enough to do all 4 ;)
The drive up to Tongoriro is impressive. When you catch first sight of the huge peak cars pull over to admire its size. It isn’t part of any mountain range, and everywhere else around is flat. There is just this huge snow-capped mountain. It truly is Mount Doom!
We drove through a quiet little town with not much going on and were told that there weren’t any shops in the direction we were going so decided it best to do some food shopping for our hike ahead. We then arrived at the National Park Village and booked into the YHA. They had the basics here, internet, kitchen, and a climbing wall :D They also had a spa, but it was fully booked when we arrived…
Finally we took the plunge and booked the next day to get the bus to the Crossing track. This costs $25pp and all they do is take you to the start of the track and pick you up at the end… so all in all an expensive taxi. They told us that there was no guarantee that we would be able to do the 8hr / 17km walk – if the winds are too high, or it is too wet then it isn’t safe enough, but today was a beautiful calm, sunny day with amazing views of the mountain.
But the next morning we were in for a real surprise. We were up in time for a 7:15 departure, and we’ve never seen fog like it. It was so thick that visibility was no more than 20 meters. We couldn’t see the road, let alone that beautiful mountain we admired yesterday, and were about to walk up today.
Still, this weather wasn’t bad enough to cancel the trip, and the bus dropped us off at the 1st hut at 7:45. Here, at the base of the mountain, it was still foggy, wet, and now also very windy. We all ummed and ahhed and finally found the way to go. We could have done with a nice warm hut and cup of tea to contemplate our next move, as many British explorers before us may have done.
We are on a very tight schedule, as we have to be at the rendez vouz point by 15:00 or otherwise wait for the 5pm one – which would be too late for us as we still needed to get to our next destination & book a bed for the night :( and if we didn’t make the 5pm bus they weren’t going to wait for us! So we have 7hrs to walk 17km, including a climb of 1900m, stop for lunch and snacks, and figure out where we are going in this weather. We were told that once we head out, there is no turning back as there will be no more traffic at this spot after 9am. From this spot it’s about a 5km walk to the “main” road. We were also told that if anyone gets hurt we need to let as many people know as possible so that the chances of help reaching them would be better – great!
So, whilst many faffed with clothing, map reading etc, we got our socks on our hands-these makeshift gloves saved us – the wind chill was terrible and we had as little skin exposed as possible – the hands and ears are always worst effected. Dressed in our most waterproof trousers, double socks on feet, t-shirts, jumpers, and North-face jackets with hoods up tight - we set off over the heath land…
To start the path was fairly well marked, and was a muddy, gravel track. Either side was a semi-rocky terrain with heather and heath grass, from what we could tell. The crowd from the bus was fairly grouped at this stage, and we could play follow the leader, assuming the guy in front knew where he was going. There were posts, every 10 meters or so, which had luminous yellow reflectors on so we could follow those as well, if we could see that far!!
I guess the first stint of walking was about an hour, and that just flew by. Mostly because we were concentrating so hard on following the path, not losing our way, avoiding puddles, and keeping warm. Despite the lack of any view this was still exciting and an adventure. In fact, the thick cloud and drizzle created a mysterious and ghostly effect, adding a kind of tension to the experience.
We stopped off to see Soda Springs, which was just really a waterfall; with the heavy mist blowing past you could barely see it at times, and was not really worth the small detour. It didn’t help with the muddy puddles and stink of sulphur!
We continued on, and the terrain was gradually beginning to change – it was gradually becoming rockier. We then came upon the first leg of the climb – a steep scramble over rocks up the side of the mountain. Every now and again the cloud cleared and we could see the top where people were waving and whooping. It didn’t look far – 400m maybe, but that was annoyingly deceptive, as it was sooo steep.
It took at least 30mins to get to the top, and then there was a little downward climb where it flattened out. There was no vegetation here – it was just flat, dusty and stoney here, with a little path trodden down by the many people who do this hike. The mist cleared briefly at times, and this is were we discovered that we were in fact walking across the South Crater and we could see how far the crater went on for! It was times like this when the sock-gloves became a bit of a joke as when the mist cleared you had to fumble around and get your camera out, but by the time you did this the mist took over again!
When we made it to the side of the Red Crater (once again, merely guess work with our location as we couldn’t see very far) we realised how difficult things had become. This was one of the most dangerous parts of the journey, as the walk was up a steep, narrow ridge. There was little protection from the wind, which had picked up to what we reckon was 60kph. You could barely walk such was the struggle, and if you weren’t careful you would get blown over… Ev lost her footing at times and had to cling onto and shelter by the occasional rock. There were some really old people (yes, even older than Marc ;) doing this and you had to wonder how were they managing to walk, let alone climb in these conditions!
On this climb, we didn’t catch much of the scenery due to the fog, and because we were concentrating on not being blown off the cliff. What we did see though reminded us of the films - desolate, barren landscape where nothing lives and only gravel, stones and boulders exist. On a good day, you would get some amazing views from up here – our highest point at 1900mts - but unfortunately not today…
Peekaboo...
We had to slip and slide back down the other side – the ground was a black sand/gravel, and it was impossible to get any grip or footings. Each footstep just sunk 6 inches into the ground and slid down through the gravel. This made life a bit easier for us though, as we didn’t have to use as much energy ;)
Next, we came to the Emerald Lakes and Crater Lakes. We could just about see them, and as we continued on we glimpsed back on the way we had just come, and through the clouds of mist we realised just how far we’d walked so far.
Another stop at the Blue Lake, this we got to see a little better – probably due to the size of it. We also started to smell the sulphur in the air from all the surrounding lakes; this was not very pleasant and we moved on from here pretty quickly ;)
The clouds now started to clear and we could see out into the distance. Unfortunately by this time all the Lord of the Rings - Mount Doom scenery was all behind us and even though the sights ahead were still beautiful it wasn’t the rough, rocky terrain we came here to see but at least it was a little sunnier and this cheered us up a lot.
We spotted the “lunch hut” which was the ½ way point, checked our watches and discovered that we were making good time. The only down side was that even though we could see how close we were to the hut, it was still a really long way down a zig-zag path :(
And so it was that round 12.30 we managed to sit down and rest ourselves whilst having a quick snack, and get some more energy for the rest of the tramp ahead.
Back on the path again we came across another sulphur outlet and you just had to hold your breath and hope that it would go away soon, this reminded Evelyn of the stink bombs the kids at school used in order to disrupt the classes – and they were just as smelly ;)
This side of the mountain was much nicer - protected from the elements experienced on the other side - which meant flowers, shrubs and grass were growing, with only the odd boulder to hide behind. An altogether more pleasant tramp ;)
We were now 5 ½ hours into the hike and suddenly it became a muddy rainforest walk, it was also now getting a little warmer thankfully. After sloshing about in the mud, walking through the rainforest, we came to a river with many small waterfalls, which was just lovely and we knew we were getting close to the end of the hike.
And so it was that around 2.45, some 7hrs later, we caught the bus back to the backpackers…
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