Tongariro Northern Circuit Day 1 and 2

So I’m on Day 2 of the Northern Circuit, and I’m warm and dry in the hut and finished hiking for today. Yesterday was the start which took me from the road to Mangatepopo Hut and over the Tongariro Crossing to Ketetahi Hut. It’s a 10 km stretch of trail and is known to be the most spectacular day tramp in New Zealand. It can be done in a day because there’s a trail down to access roads from either side of the huts. It’s become quite a popular day hike and yesterday there must have been 300-400 people doing the crossing. Ugh! When the shuttle dropped us off at the trailhead and I saw about 10 full size tour buses I thought oh no. It was definitely not a wilderness experience, but the trail was beautiful and well worth having to deal with the crowds. I guess.

The hordes of day hikers all had little daypacks and there I was with a big backpack trying to navigate around them. Without really knowing how many were ahead, I was worried that the Ketetahi Hut would be full for the night since they operate on a first come/first serve basis. So I decided to keep a steady pace and not do either of the side trails to the two summits because with no tent I would have been in trouble. It’s not a very good system really because I did buy a hut pass for the night but they’re like well we can’t guarantee a spot. So why bother then? Anyway it turned out to be totally fine because we only had 7 people in a 24-person hut. It seems as if most of the hordes go back to their hotels for the night.

So what’s all the hub-bub about this most spectacular day hike? Well it really is amazing. You’ve got 2 distinct volcanoes (with many other little ones around): Mount Ngauruhoe (2291 m, 7516 feet) and Mount Tongariro (1967 m, 6453 feet). The trail goes up to the saddle in between both of them. Both mountains are snow-capped and Ngauruhoe is especially beautiful because it’s a perfect cone-shaped volcano. Once you get up to the saddle you go down again and then across the South Crater, then up again to Red Crater, which, at 6188 feet, is the highest point of the crossing. It is a stunning brick-red colored volcanic ash with a few snow fields on it. As if that wasn’t enough, you go down from Red Crater and have a perfect view of 3 Emerald Lakes, which are a brilliant color blue against the volcanic landscape. It’s cool. The weather was good too – sun and blue skies in the morning/ cloudy in the afternoon.

Around 3 pm the day hikers cleared out of our hut and headed down to the road and it was nice and quiet and peaceful, FINALLY! And the people who stayed in our hut were all really good people, thankfully. There were 7 of us in total – Vawn (a girl from Alberta, Canada), Paul from Canada (Winnepeg), Erik and Julie from the US and UK, and a Belgian couple staying in a tent. The hut warden, Julie from Canada (Alberta), was a really cool, and all of us spent most of the afternoon and all of the evening sitting around and chatting. Julie is thinking about doing the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in 2004 so I was telling her a few of my AT stories and encouraging her to go for it.

It was a quiet night in the hut with so few of us there and I slept well. I should say that the huts here are pretty nice – equipped with gas stoves and a gas heater even. Worth the $7 USD a night fee I think.

Anyway we were up early this morning to get the 7:15am weather report from Julie’s radio. It wasn’t good. Rain for today; rain and thunderstorms and heavy winds for tomorrow. Lovely. NOT easy to get motivated with that forcast. But I decided the best thing to do was just face it, get out early, and try to get as far as possible before the rain came. I was the first one out of the hut at 8:15am.

And the best part was that I didn’t see another hiker all day!!

Not a soul! It so made up for the ridiculous crowds from yesterday. That wasn’t a good intro for my first tramp in New Zealand to see so many people actually, and I was starting to wonder if I would even enjoy the tramping thinking all the tracks would be so crowded. Then today, to see no one, was such a relief. To have the trail all to myself made me excited to be in New Zealand again. The landscape was beautiful, walking through old lava flows all around Mount Ngauruhoe, even if I couldn’t actually see the mountain due to all the clouds and mist. It didn’t start to rain until about 3 hours into the hike and even then it was only a light rain so it was no big deal. It would have been nice to have more views but I was more happy that it wasn’t pissing down raining so I didn’t care.

I was the only person at the hut when I arrived at 2:30pm. Again I was so happy! And I was still relatively dry. I spent some time unpacking and naking a cup of tea and relaxing. Good day.

Eventually Vawn rolled in and then Erik and Julie and it was cool to hang out with them again this evening. There was another guy chatting with us too – Omer from Israel. We had some good laughs.

-Banned from conversation:
toilets
Tim Tam cookies
Lord of the Rings

‘This hot water bottle is so hot I can hardly even touch it’ Vawn

Anyway tomorrow I’ll be getting up early and heading out of the circuit, hoping to avoid the heavy rains and t-storms.

Mount Ngauruhoe on the Tongariro Crossing

Walking across the south Crater, the clouds look like steam rising

Emerald Lakes

Add comment December 6th, 2002