I really am quite a fortunate soul. It seems that wherever I happen
upon crazy ideas for adventures, I also happen upon the people to bring
them to fruition with. My life is one that is filled with experiences
and people that deliver meaning and joy, and for that I am grateful. I
was having one such conversation with my friends Claire and Ben a couple
of weeks ago (in amongst the obligatory discussion of how 9-5 work is a
necessary evil to fund gear purchases). We were on our way up Tongariro
in the early afternoon on a beautiful sunny day to do some camping and
stargazing. I spend a lot of time up the three peaks in Tongariro
National Park (as you may have noticed), and it never ceases to amaze me
how much it differs from trip to trip... There is, without exception,
something new to be seen or experienced each time I go up there, and
it's a fantastic "training ground" for me. Having only spent my first
season playing in the snow last year (and discovering how much I loved
it), I have made it my mission to gradually put together a "tool box" of
the skills and gear I need to keep enjoying adventures in the mountains
and hopefully, eventually, pass those skills onto others so they may
also enjoy the experiences which I hold so dear to my heart. The Ruapehu
area is the perfect place to work on these skills, and I have come to
know the terrain pretty well... It's like my little adventure playground
just down the road.
But
anyway, enough of the mushy stuff... We were on our way up the mountain
for an adventure! The last time I had been camping up here at red
crater, I remember gazing across to my left and having a flat expanse of
snow catch my eye. Further inspection on the topo map showed me that it
was the northern crater, and was flat as a pancake... Perfect camping
spot well off the track with elevated views for the sunsets and sunrises
I love so much... So ever since then, I had been on a mission to get
back up there and go and check it out. We were hideously disappointed at
the lack of snow up here on this visit, and we secretly wished for our
camp spot to be free of boulders. Camping on the scree was going to be
far more uncomfortable than camping on snow, but camping on boulders
would have been a pretty crappy experience.
So
we climbed up to Red Crater, then followed the Tongariro summit route
until the final climb, then dipped down off the saddle to the north,
negotiating the scree and boulders down the slope and back up the other
side. The cold wind rose up from the south and nipped away at our skin
and I continued to ignore it until the cold finally got too much for me
and I succumbed to removing my pack and putting on an extra layer
(removing my pack, at 19kgs, was a rather cumbersome task and one I
avoided when I could... I had learned to pack smart so anything I may
need was well in reach, but I had not yet mastered the art of adding and
removing layers without taking the pack off, and suspected it was
probably actually less awkward to remove the pack than it was to attempt
"jacket gymnastics" on the side of the mountain).
Once
we reached the top of the other side of the saddle, we were faced with a
series of bluffs which blocked our path down onto the crater plateau. A
combination of creative route choice, bum-sliding and coarse language
soon saw us arrive at our destination, a lovely flat canvas which was
relatively boulder-free (although we still wished there was snow
there!). Ben had generously offered to bring their three-person tent,
which was awesome for two reasons... Firstly, it meant I didn't have to
carry a tent, and secondly, meant that we could socialise inside the
tent once it got too cold outside, as opposed to me retreating to my own
lonely abode. It also meant we could play UNO... But more on that
later.
Ben
and Claire pitched the tent whilst I took photos (sorry guys...
seriously, I just didn't want to get in the way!) and we boiled up a
brew. The crater plateau was a good kilometre across and we had camped
on the eastern side behind a small rocky knoll to keep us out of the
wind. This meant that to see the sunset, we would need to trek across to
the other side of the crater, and as the sun lowered in the sky, a
cloud rolled across the mountain. The haze was coloured a deep ochre red
from the pending sunset, but apart from shadows, little could be seen.
Moving 5m from the tent made it nearly invisible. The suggestion that we
wouldn't see the sunset anyway was bandied around and then we decided
that we had little better to do otherwise and so struck a westerly
bearing across the featureless moonscape, dragging our feet in the
scoria as we walked so we could follow our tracks back to the tent.
As
we walked, the sun hung in front of us on the other side of the cloud, a
large red spot blotting out the sky. Shadows of rocks and of each other
crossed in front of the sun and blacked out spectacular silhouettes
bordered by a hazy ochre background. It was really eerie, and had we not
being in each others company, I probably would have found it a bit
creepy. As we neared the other side of the crater, the cloud seemed to
roll through, revealing a bright blue sky in front of us... The sun
reflecting off the cloud created a incredibly stark contrast of red
smoke against the blue sky. We reached the edge of the mountain just as
the sun was about to disappear to find we were floating above a sea of
clouds with little more than the sun and the tip of Mount Taranaki in
view. The horizon above the clouds was layered with a brilliant array of
colours which continued to shift and change long after the sun had left
us as we made our way back to camp.
The
cookers came out and meals were thrown together (I was rather jealous
of Claire's frittata). We collected a series of rocks to use as tables
and chairs and sat down for our feast (the size and weight of the rock
we could carry was directly proportional to our comfort whilst dining).
We had some wine and checked out the stars. The clear night sky and the
new moon meant the blackness was punctuated by a million pin pricks of
light... Sometimes I think I could stand there forever and gaze at the
night sky like this. It is completely mind-boggling the concept of
exactly what you are staring it. I was quite visibly stoked about being
up here. It made me feel good breathing the fresh mountain air and
gazing into the clear night sky.
As
the evening grew colder, we retreated to the tent, hot chocolate in
hand. I had recently purchased myself a new 840 loft fully waterproof
sleeping bag and a new 4.6R sleeping mat and was looking forward to
taking them for a test run. I stripped down to my thermals and snuggled
into my sleeping bag (just as a small side-note, did you know that
sleeping bags are more effective the less you wear???)... Then the UNO
cards came out... There was vigorous debate surrounding how legitimate a
win was if it was gained with a wild card, and after quite a
competitive couple of rounds, Claire was crowned the UNO Queen of the
mountain that night.
We
then settled down for some sleep. My new sleeping bag was toasty warm,
but I still had broken sleep (and the weirdest dreams I ever recall!).
It probably didn't help that Ben's last words for the evening were
"imagine how freaked out you would be if you heard footsteps around the
tent right now"... Thanks for that Ben!
When
we awoke at about 6am, my GPS told me it was -2.4 degrees... Inside the
tent... With three people in there. I had been needing to go to the
toilet since about midnight and kitted up for a quick exit from the
tent. The vestibule was filled with ice crystals that had formed in the
soil overnight and outside the relative warmth of the tent, the
temperature was noticeably cooler. We boiled up a cuppa and climbed to
the top of the rocky knoll which had protected us from the wind all
evening. When we climbed over the top, we were hit with an icy blast of
cold mountain air, so we stayed on the closer side, protected from the
elements whilst we waited for the sun to crest the horizon, which it did
in it's usual spectacular fashion, first dancing across the lakes,
making them shimmer and ripple in the morning breeze, then setting the
horizon and the peaks on fire. The warmth it bestowed upon my body was
absolutely divine, and I soaked it up to remove the chill from my bones.
It was another beautiful day we had ahead of us.
We
took our time packing up our tent site. Lisa and her friends were
climbing up the Tongariro Crossing in the opposite direction (from
Ketatahi carpark) to meet us at Blue Lake and were running a little
late, so we were at our leisure. We descended off the northern crater on
what should have been a loose scree slope, but given how cold the
evening had been, the slope was frozen solid, and we walked across it
with barely even a pebble breaking loose. We rejoined the Tongariro
Crossing just near the blue lake and meandered around to the edge of the
lake, then circumnavigated it's shores. The lake had a thin layer of
ice over the top of it, which made a strange, bubbly "plonk" sound when
broken with a rock. The green alpine shrubbery that crawled across the
ground contrasted against the deep blue of the lake and with no wind,
there was quite a pronounced reflection of the surrounding ridges and
peaks on the lake.
Around
11.30am, I saw the smiling face of my fave girl walking up the track
towards us, her friends in tow. I was looking rather disheveled from my
night on the mountain, but it didn't seem to stop people giving me the
obligatory hug... I guess I'm just that lovable right?
As
the morning wore on, more and more people made their way up onto the
plateau, until there was a steady stream of bodies marching along the
Tongariro Alpine Highway. It blew me away how many people were up
there... Thousands... And the mess they made... Frozen lakes were
covered in rocks that people had thrown on them and not broken the
surface... The edges of the same lakes were shattered from people
stomping on the edges as hard as they could to see if they could break
the ice, people dropped rubbish and food, and one guy was walking along
with a boom box hanging off the bottom of his pack, disturbing the peace
surrounding him with some sort of repetitive fork-scratching sound
layed over a kick drum (I kindly asked him to switch the f**king thing
off). We were going in the opposite direction to what most people do, so
fortunately, we only had to endure the loss of serenity for a
relatively short period... It just reminded me of exactly why I come up
here so early in the morning. It broke my heart to see people so aloof
to the fact that they were treating the mountain with such apparent lack
of appreciation.
I'll
admit that the climb up to Red crater from this end of the track was
pretty hideous and we trudged one by one up the steep slope, taking one
step back for every two steps forward in the loose scree. The most
demoralising part of it was seeing everyone else coming down the other
way! Cresting the top of that climb and nestling into the side of the
hill for some lunch was one of the best parts of the day. We had only
downhill ahead of us, I was hanging with Lisa and our collection of
buddies, and we were gazing upon a brilliant blue sky. What really set
the day off was the stunning sunset we were treated to when we arrived
at our destination at the Mangatepopo carpark. It seemed fitting to see
the sun gently settling across the flats around the mountain as we
pulled off our packs... The sun setting on yet another cool little
adventure with the people I love most!
