In November 2011 Jonathan and Kay had a visit from Kay's cousin Julia and
her husband Bruce. They wanted to do the Tongariro crossing, and so did we,
so we arranged to go together. Bruce and Julia were older but fitter than us.
To the right Bruce sets off. Below you can see the rest of us, all bright-eyed
and bushy-tailed.
The terrain is gentle for a few kms. Overall we would walk 21.68km, ascending 800m
and descend about 1150m. The first 6km and the last 6km are gentle.
This section is easy, there is a boardwalk above the soggy terrain.
That is Jonathan and Bruce ahead.
My tropical fish pants did not go unnoticed. One American climber had to get a portrait. He thought the camouflage was excellent. Yessiree, those aquarium fish don't see me coming.
The weather was cool and bright, but overcast. Fortunately,
it would clear up for us by the time we got to the top.
We have spoken to others who were reduced to crawling along the ridge in a cloud bank.
The view backwards from the bottom of "the stairs" is lovely.
After the gentle climb you reach what is called "the stairs".
The stairs really are, in places, stairs.
The stairs were not so easy.
No photo can encompass this, because you cannot see very far up from where you are,
but the world seems to rise at least as fast as you climb it.
After a while, and it seems like a very long while, you reach a basin between Mount Doom
(Mount Ngauruhoe) and the peak of Tangariro.
This basin is like a piece of Mongolia.
To the right you see Kay as we walked across the basin.
Below, Jonathan in the middle of the basin, called the "South Crater", I believe.
Viewed as you look back from the ridge above, the crater comes into scale. Note the ant-trail in the image below, the path you have just walked to get across the basin.
This is not the end of the uphillpart, however, the challenges keep coming. This image shows the ridge up to the highest part of the saddle through which you pass. I cannot imagine doing this part in a whiteout, on your knees. We had perhaps 40kmh winds, but it can get much worse in that respect as well.
It is something when you finally get to the top. You feel as much mountaineer as hiker. Bruce, Julia, Kay and I looked the part.
The views are spectacular. This is the Red Crater.
And this a view past Bruce towards the Blue Lake.
And this a view of Kay and I above the Emerald Lakes.
What it is easy to forget is that there is an equally arduous, and eventually
tedious, exit from this place. At left you can see the ant-trail across the
snowy tundra of the (I believe) Central Crater, viewed after you cross it.
Below you can see that the blue lake really is blue. These photos, incidentally, are mostly taken with a Nikon D90 DSLR and the rest with a Nikon S-620. None have been retouched or enhanced in any way, colour included. They have been reduced to 1--2Mpixels and jpeg-compressed, so this is not too extreme to download.
You also need to know that you need the right gear, proof against wind and moisture,
or you could have a truly miserable experience.
Also, it is good to carry a PDA with a hiking ap, so you know distances and altitude.
You even get cellphone coverage, just in case of emergencies. I love PDAs.
There are a few exciting parts on the way out, such as a snow traverse
like this.
Part of the reason a GPS machine is good revolves around the descent.
Kay and I each took almost 200 photos, but few once we left the last crater.
I kept wondering when it was all going to end. It felt like I was walking
kilometres, and I would find I had gone only 500m.
There is a lot of pleasant but, after the top, very
same-old-same-old terrain, and finally about 6km of plain old bush hike.
The overall scene is marvellous, but our legs wanted no tedium.
