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Published: July 16th 2015
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Mt. Doom / Ngauruhoe
You can summit in the warmer months and still complete the crossing in a day. It took me awhile to find a good place to stand to hitch a 1 hour lift from Rotorua to Taupo- right where route 5 makes a hard turn on the edge of the city. Once I settled on standing on the median where cars were waiting in a line to make the turn, it took all of thirty seconds before someone gave me the wave.
The plan from the start was to do the Tongariro Crossing... you don't have to be in the area long to hear it called the best day hike in New Zealand. In warmer months it can be done independently, as it's a fairly straight forward 7 hour, 19.5 km hike of moderate difficulty, but in winter the trail is mostly snow-covered and is only passable on days with good weather and low avalanche dangers.
I initially planned on meeting friends I had met in Australia to do the hike. They waited in Taupo for days but the tour companies weren't running the hike, which means no one without equipment should be trying it on their own. They eventually had to give up and leave.
The companies started the tour again the day
before I arrived but published on their site that about half of the walk was covered in snow and that for some sections of that, crampons would be needed. I didn't even have proper boots, let alone crampons.
When I got to Taupo, the girl at Tiki Hostel (which was pretty good- I enjoyed it there) said all was clear for the next day and that their company offered guides for the crossing for 130, far cheaper than I had seen before. Pretty much everyone at the hostel was going on the hike, which made for a good scene the night before.
They picked us up early and the 29 of us headed to the National Park. It was an hour and a half ride on the bus along "frosty" roads, as they put it in NZ.
They had good boots to rent on the bus but I wish they had an option to try them on the night before. I felt rushed and ended up choosing ones that barely fit, and all I had were ankle socks- I didn't find out till after that they had hiking socks available. The woefully ill-prepared could buy sunglasses and
hats at reasonable costs.
The first part of the hike was on boardwalks across wet areas. Even at low elevations there was ice and snow. It was probably around 20 degrees Fahrenheit when we started. Then it got more difficult with Devil's Staircase, which wasn't very devilish. We put on the crampons after that and the next section was pretty sketchy- I definitely wouldn't want to do it in regular boots... you would slide right down the mountain.
That all led to the hardest section, which still wasn't nearly as difficult as described, and we ate lunch on an area of bare earth, right above a thermal that melted the snow. Then we went through the lakes area which was unfortunately frozen over, except that we got to walk across a wide frozen lake after sliding on our butts down a big hill.
The views of snow-covered Mt. Doom (Ngauruhoe) were spectacular and Lake Taupo and Rotorua off in the distance looked untouched, despite the hydroelectric canal that was apparently there.
I think that overall the hike would be better in the summer, since I could be fine independently and the colorful lakes would be visible,
but it was totally worth it in such a clear day in the winter, despite the costs.
There are more photos below.
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